I’ve never had a nickname. When I was at Girl Scout camp I tried to secure “Doodles”
We interrupt this blog entry for a public service announcement.
We would like to remind all readers who are allergic to raw eggs that cake batter contains raw eggs. Even one lick of cake batter can race through you system in – let me check my watch – ninety minutes.
— but “Doodles” never caught on. And hence, I’ve never had a nickname. I mention this because in what I can only imagine is some strange “Team-building” effort, everyone on our most recent work project has been encouraged to come up with a nickname. Because of the Black Croup, I missed out on the Nickname Happy Hour, but I almost guessed the nickname the rest of the team would assign me: “Balls. “
It began about a year ago, when we were discussing why a fellow employee never gave me the hard time she gives everyone else.
I said, “Maybe she’s afraid to because I’ve been here longer than she has.”
“Or maybe because you have balls the size of coconuts,” Marcia replied, and everyone laughed.
I suppose so much time is spent in your twenties and thirties solidifying your identity, that when your personality changes in your forties it catches you unaware. I had no idea I had balls.
Okay, the cake batter just made me have to replace the toilet paper. Granted, someone with balls would not make an effort to place the toilet paper in the husband-approved flap-in-back position.
So I’ve made quite the comedy routine out of my imaginary balls. I have a pantomime of me carrying my heavy balls over to a nearby table and placing them (roughly) on the tabletop for display. Sometimes I absent-mindedly stroke them if the person I’m speaking to needs a little courage. Some days people ask me how I am and I sigh that my balls are weighing heavily on me.
That’s why I was pretty sure “Balls” was going to be my assigned nickname. As it turned out, my friends are far more clever than I. The choices for my nickname were:
Flasher (see here)
Boston (see here)
Jenny %&#$! Craig (see here)
But the winner was:
Crown Jewels.
CLEVER!

5 responses to “Batters and Balls”
Very fitting.Will you be getting it engraved on anything?
Heck, I don’t know. I frankly don’t know a thing about this project, the nicknames, anything.
I think it should be noted that at the office, the term “ellens” is actually entirely synonymous and completely interchangeable with the term “balls”. “My, what big ellens you have!””You’re spineless! Where’s your ellens??” “My ellens are itchy today”
Hey, at least you got named for something you have instead of something you wear.They are nice boots though.
You were rocking the brown suede boots today, I must say with only a tinge of envy.