What's In A Name?

 

I don’t have a middle name.

 

I do have first and last names, but apparently my birth was such a mind-bending horror show that Mom didn’t have the strength to come up with a middle name and Dad was so overwhelmed by being a first time father that all he could manage was giving me a middle letter: ‘J’.

 

Sixty-some years later, so much energy has been expended returning mail, applications, and other forms because I have a ‘secret’ middle name that I’m somehow REFUSING to disclose (for some mysterious reason) that, if we do end up on a planet burnt to toast, it will be due to my lack of a middle name.

 

I did some research and found out that there is an Unknown Government Agency tasked with handling people who, through no fault of their own, have no actual middle names. This agency operates in a super secret underground bunker which can be found 35 miles South of Cleetus, Alabama just down Rt. 9, past the Dairy Queen.

 

The agency is run by Lt. General Laurence (“Bite Me”) Longfellow ll, son of General Laurence (“YO MAMA”) Longfellow, the “Hero Of Granada” and former female impersonator, and descended from Sigmund (“Offeth Shall You Fuck”) Longfellow who once pissed on Lord Chamberlin’s shoes, and the poet Else Moss, who wrote the eternally touching: “I Know Something’s Happening Because Everything Is Moving” and the fascinating and informative: “Advice To Women: Where To Look When He Performs The ‘Towel Trick’”.

 

“Do you know WHICH group of people HAVE no last names?” asked Lt. General Longfellow ll menacingly, his breath smelling of high priced bourbon and onions, “The CHINESE! THAT’S WHO! AND the RUSSKIES!”

 

“Sir,” I interjected, “I’m not sure that’s quite true...”

 

“AND the FRENCH! Wine swilling, cheese eating surrender monkeys!,’ he roared, spilling his drink and spitting. “They may have middle names and a feckin’ TOWER, but their men smell of perfume and  urine, and their women are hairier than BIGFOOT!”

 

He fell out of his chair with a Grande Flourish, and after I picked him up off the floor, I realized it was useless to get any more information from Longfellow the Second. I paid for the drinks and left him as he was warming up to rage against men wearing pink.

 

Now, I can pretend that this “Not-Having-A-Middle-Name” situation is more than it is, which is a “sometimes-amusing-but-often-irritating” occurrence, or I could have fun with it. To that end, I am considering middle names for myself.

 

The letter ‘J’ is the first letter of my father’s given name, but I have decided to choose my own middle name.

 

Something like: “Josiah”.

 

Or: “Jehoshaphat”.

 

Or: “Jerathgoth: Destroyer Of Worlds”...