Finding that perfect baby name is every expecting couple’s dream.
But the process can be a real nightmare…
Naming a child is no easy task. While it’s a great honor indeed, it is also a great responsibility that one must not enter into lightly. I mean, the poor kid is going to have that name yoked around their neck for the rest of their life, so you gotta choose wisely!
Now, I’m not one to over-think things…wait, that doesn’t sound right. I am one to over-think things, and believe you me, naming our first daughter something less generic than The Elder was the grand-daddy of all the many over-thought thoughts I’ve had in my long and storied career as a professional over-thinker (with the lone exception being what I should get for a tattoo).
And it doesn’t help that the Boss Lady and I are a notoriously bad combination when it comes to making mutually agreeable decisions in an efficient manner.
I mean, we actually ended up watching the 1994 Tim Robbins/Meg Ryan/Walter Matthau not-so-much-of-a-hit-movie, I.Q., on Netflix once, for fuck’s sake. The only good decision we made that evening was to call it quits on I.Q. 20 minutes into the bore-fest, and just re-watch the 1997 Bruce Willis/Milla Jovovich/Gary Oldman/Luke Perry/Chris Tucker actually-entertaining-movie, The Fifth Element instead.
And that example is, incidentally, how we coined the term “Netflix Name.”
Giving our child a Netflix Name was our worst nightmare: the fear was that we would do such a crap-ass job at compromising that we would end up giving her a name that no one was happy with. Just like is bound to happen when any couple–you know who you are (everybody)–tries to jointly decide what movie to watch on that ubiquitous content-streaming service.
Anyways, after collaboratively slaving away at the task for a good 7 months, the prospect of coming up with a name that was desirable to one of us and at least satisfactory to the other was looking pretty bleak.
It even haunted me in my sleep.
One night, with less than a month to go before The Elder was due, I had a dream that I was a miner of precious ore and gemstones, and that I had fallen victim to every miner’s worst nightmare: trapped in a cave-in.
In dreamland, I was trapped underground for over two weeks before being rescued, and when I came to the surface, I received the fantastic news that the Boss Lady had had our child in my abence.
Now usually one would be irreparably upset at missing out on the once-in-a-lifetime of an event like the birth of their first child. But strangely, I wasn’t.
In fact, I was ecstatic–it meant that she had figured out what to name her! After being tormented for so long, I would finally have the resolution of knowing The Name To End All Names. Oh, sweet revelation!
I got on the phone with the Boss Lady, and with tears of joy trickling down my face as I wept, I told her how much I loved her and the new life we had brought into the world together…and then I immediately pivoted to “So what did you name her?!?”
…and then I woke up.
The point of the story is, the Universe can be so ----- cruel sometimes. May you never forget that.
Oh, and Happy Birthday to The Elder! Here’s to 8 years of knowing the true Name To End All Names…
Content created on: 10 March 2021 (Wednesday)
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