I try most days to be a mature, sensible person while I have to masquerade all week long as a civil service employee of quasi-management level. So when I’m in a meeting where my eyes are nearly tearing up from boredom, and I’m tightening my jaw to fight that inevitable yawn, I try so damn hard to focus on what’s being discussed.
And then I hear it – the funny name that tickles my ear. And then I look around the conference table to see if anyone else heard it. Like you do when you’re pretty sure you heard a fart in the room. It was the last name of Smoot. I don’t know why, but the giggle that I stifled came out like an air-compressor sound puff through my nose. I had to maintain composure, but I could feel my lips mouthing and re-mouthing “Smoot”.
Please – don’t get mad at me, family members of the House of Smoot. I’m not saying it’s a bad name at all. Just for me, personally, it makes me smile. A book by one of my favorite writers, Dave Barry, mentions this name throughout “history.” This book, Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States
So getting back to names that make me smile and when I hear them, I think, “Really, that’s his name? Cool.” (Followed by clenched lips/nose puff.) Here are some others which you might recognize:
- first name of Egbert
- first name of Hannibal (someone in my department at work)
- and of course, anyone Smoot. This is a link to the Top 5 facts for the name Joe Smoot. It’s a fun site. You can search any name and see what info it comes up with. Put in your own, of course.
So yeah, I get distracted (and amused) by certain names, just like some people get distracted (but not amused) by a unibrow.
Most famous unibrow
Related Posts:
And Dikshit Was His Name-O
Laughing At Funny Names – It’s a Gas!
4 kids playing along so far ↓
1 CJ
// Feb 13, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Hey Mom, this is CJ! I’m at the barracks right now “cleaning” my room on a Friday night (scrub scrub here, scrub scrub there… This is how we clean in the merry old land of Oz!) Anyway, while I was cleaning, my phone also somehow opened up the internet and my fingers somehow went to your page and my eyes somehow started reading this article. All while I was cleaning! I don’t know if you remember me telling you about this, but when I was in Pensacola a guy came through the aircrew school and his name was Sackrider. Ok, Sackrider+ 45 new Marines + 4 senior Marines= … You do the math because being a Marine myself, I certainly cannot. Sackrider is probably somewhere on the east coast now doing his thing- whatever it is that Sackriders do- but I will always remember that one.
Love you!
CJ
2 marissa
// Feb 13, 2009 at 9:02 pm
SACKRIDER!! Yes, the image I’m getting right now. It’s not pretty. (my snickering is quickly building into a guffaw explosion.)
I have to be careful. Sackrider can probably kill me 25 different ways with his bare sackrider hands.
3 Marissa
// May 15, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Hey so I googled my name on a random whim and came across this article. Ironically enough, my name is Marissa Sackrider
and yes, I could never live down the name all throughout my public school years. My boyfriend still can’t believe that he’s dating someone with that last name. At least I have it somewhat easier than my brother, who will always and forever be a sackrider
4 marissa
// May 15, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Hi Marissa!
Wow – it’s like I just said that to a mirror. Well, thanks for having a good sense of humor about it. I mean no disrespect. (I’m sooo busted.)
My daughter CJ would tell me how everyone in the Marine Corps gets a nickname and that Sackrider got a lot of ribbing for his name.
I hope you got a chance to read my post on “Marissa” spelled backwards:
Click here.
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