The Name Game

One of the more ‘interesting’ aspects of my job is being paid to listen to conversations during supervised visits with various families. Sometimes I am amused, sometimes I’m outraged (and if someone says something to a child that outrages me, it is generally grounds to terminate the visit post-haste), sometimes I’m agog.

Yesterday I was supervising a lengthy visit between a fourteen-year-old and her extended family, who drove in from about three hours away to see her. There was a great-gramma, a great-grandpa, a gramma and an aunt. The aunt is three months pregnant, and while we were at a mexican restaurant –me at one booth and them all piled into another– the subject of baby names came up.

“Heh,” says the aunt, “Heh-heh,” and then she began to tell the table about how the babydaddy thought it would be clever to call the child ‘Mary Jane’ because, you know, marijuana was a factor in its conception.

Allow me to illustrate the silliness of this notion by sharing with you what my own children’s names might be if everyone adhered to this practice:

Sam: Red Handprint* On The Wall So As Not To Overbalance

Scout: Hot Recliner Action

Mathias: Everybody Upstairs Heard Us Loud and Clear

So yes, you can see the impracticality of such a thing.

*Cherry body paints. Eh, we were in an ‘ezperimental’ phase. *shrug*