Diane Henders

Toolaholics Anonymous

/ Diane Henders / 22 Comments

*F-BOMB ALERT* – CONTAINS (more) COARSE LANGUAGE (than usual)

Hello, my name is Diane, and I’m a toolaholic.

I first realized I might have a problem the day I caught myself whining at my husband because he wouldn’t let me buy a hydraulic engine hoist (it was on sale, too, dammit).

Everybody needs an engine hoist.  I have an engine stand.  How am I supposed to get my engine block off the stand and back into my car without a hoist?  At the time, I rationalized it as reasonable behaviour.  But I knew I’d hit rock-bottom the day I sneaked home with a knife-sharpening kit… and hid it.

Maybe I was feeling guilty because I already have a wet-wheel sharpener for my wood-turning tools.  I’ve used it in the past, but the stone is really too coarse for my good-quality kitchen knives.  And Hubby’s diamond sharpening set doesn’t have a jig, so it’s hard to put a precise angle on the blade.  And I’ve never mastered the art of using the steel to hone knives.  And nothing drives me crazier than a dull knife.

So really, I needed a five-stone sharpening kit with a jig.

My husband is my enabler.  Sometimes he buys me tools for my birthday and for Christmas.  Sometimes he buys me tools “just because”.  Tools are the perfect gift.  They’re beautiful.  They’re shiny.  They’re powerful.  They’re practical.  I need tools.  Everybody needs tools.

I wasn’t always a toolaholic.  When I got married, I only had one set of carpentry tools, one set of kitchen tools, and one set of automotive tools.  My tools were always clean and organized and ready to use.  Hubby had a couple of sets of his own tools.  Everything should have been fine.

But.

I’m a put-it-away-er.  He’s a drop-it-where-you-used-it kinda guy.  So he misplaces tools frequently.  Then he steals mine, because “they’re easy to find”.

Yeah, because I actually put them back where they belong after using them.

Then I go to do some small job and I can’t find my goddamn-sonuvabitch-where-the-hell-are-my-fucking-TOOLS?!?

He’s a resourceful fellow with a well-developed sense of self-preservation, so he solved the problem.  Not by putting my tools back after using them.  Oh, no.  By buying me new tools when he gets in trouble.

For example, we now own at least eleven hammers.  A couple of framing hammers, a couple of ball-peens, a couple of hand sledges, and several multi-purpose claw hammers.  Oh, and a brass one for when you can’t risk striking a spark.  And a rubber one.  Plus three full-size sledgehammers of varying weights.

I still can’t find a hammer when I need one.

The same thing has happened with socket sets and screwdrivers and pliers and drill bits and oil filter wrenches.  I may have actually threatened him with death the day I couldn’t find my nice little ultra-fine flexible Japanese hand saw.  (It still hasn’t turned up, but he bought me another).

After a few years of marriage, I began to stash tools in out-of-the-way places, hoping they’d still be there the next time I needed them.  Then I started buying extra tools “just in case”.  Soon I couldn’t walk into a tool store without buying something.

So really, the tool addiction isn’t my fault.  He drove me to it.

But I can quit any time I want.

Honest.

Food Fetishes

/ Diane Henders / 21 Comments

The dictionary tells me a fetish can be an object that  elicits reverence and devotion, or an object that causes an erotic response.  For me, food falls neatly into both categories.  Sometimes I love food.  Sometimes I looooove food.  (Not literally.  Don’t worry, it’s still safe to eat the cucumbers at my house.)

I do, however, admit to a peculiar food-related habit that can be safely discussed in polite company.  And no, I’m not going to talk about the time I nearly suffered le petit mort over a hazelnut crème brulée and a flight of ice wine.

But it was really, really good.

‘Scuse me while a take a deep breath.

Anyway, what I meant to discuss is the fact that I’m a picky eater.  Not in the sense of having a limited range of foods I’ll eat – quite the contrary.  I’ll eat just about anything except black licorice.  I’m talking about the way I eat.

I always hold corn on the cob with the big end at the left.  I eat left to right in a clean, straight pattern.  The cob, when returned to my plate, is placed horizontally at the 12:00 position.  I contend this is simple logic.  If the cob’s at the front, it’s hard to reach over it to get at the rest of your food.

Pie and pizza are to be eaten point-first.  I’ve seen others eat it crust-first, and while that appeals to my logical side (eat the dry crust first and finish up with the good stuff), I don’t seem to be able to adopt that system.

I once knew a guy who preferred to dig randomly into the middle of a pie without cutting slices, but I consider that to be a sign of a deranged mind.  He ate his corn randomly, too.  And he was more than a little deranged.  ‘Nuff said.

Meat, potatoes, and veggies get laid out in specific locations on the plate.  Meat at 10:00, potatoes at 2:00, veggies at 6:00.  But I’m flexible.  Sometimes I swap the potato/veggie positions.  And sometimes the meat moves up to 12:00 or down as far as 8:00.

I didn’t realize how entrenched this habit was until I caught myself rotating my plate and feeling vague discomfort when the food came arranged differently in a restaurant.  I’ll deny actually rearranging food on my plate at a restaurant, but you probably already know I’m lying.  And I always eat clockwise around the plate, one bite of meat, then one of potatoes, etc.

Toast, I bite off the bottom left corner first.  Then the bottom right corner, then the middle.  I repeat in rows until the entire slice is gone.  It’s simple logic.  I like peanut butter and honey, and this configuration minimizes the probability of smearing sticky stuff on my cheeks.

Speaking of peanut butter, I scoop it from around the edges of the jar. Systematically, scraping it tidily off the inside and gradually working my way around counter-clockwise.  I never stick a knife in the middle of the jar.  Freud would probably have a heyday with that one.

And don’t even get me started about buttering toast and then scooping up more goodies on the knife, leaving toast crumbs in the butter/honey/jam.  That’s just plain wrong.

Is it because I’m a geek and my brain is naturally happy with linear patterns?  Or is it because I’m a control-loving, slightly obsessive freak?  (Don’t answer that).

Anybody else have freakish food fetishes?  Please tell me I’m not the only one.

Sometimes I Speak Swahili

/ Diane Henders / 29 Comments

Sometimes I speak Swahili.  It’s the only possible explanation.  Except for the fact that people who speak Swahili can’t understand me, either.  So maybe sometimes I speak a heretofore-unknown but terribly clever secret language.

Yeah, that’s gotta be it.

Has this ever happened to you?  I’m standing in front of somebody flapping my gums, and I think I’m being perfectly clear.  Then I see the glaze of bewilderment in their eyes.

I try harder.  I explain it a different way.

If they’re nice, polite people, they try really hard, too.  They frown in concentration.  They watch my lips.  They try to read my body language for a clue.  And incomprehension spreads across their faces like local anaesthetic during dental surgery.

Eventually, we give up by tacit agreement.  They nod and pretend to understand.  I nod and pretend to believe them.  We walk away frustrated, brains feeling like wrung-out sponges.

Or, if they’re not particularly polite, their eyes dart sideways before they sneak a glance at their watch and exclaim, “Geez, look at the time!  Gotta go!”  And then they flee.

Frankly, I don’t blame them.

I hate it when words fail me.  The problem is, they don’t fail me in the sense of refusing to come out of my mouth.  They fail me in the sense of refusing to come out of my brain in any kind of useful pattern.

That happened to me the other day on a blog.  I wrote a comment.  I checked the comment over and edited it, because I’m anal and that’s just what I do.  Then I posted the comment.  When the blogger replied, it seemed words had failed me again.

Written words are worse than spoken ones.  When you’re standing in front of somebody, your voice and expression and body language combine with your speech to get your message across.  But a few black squiggles on a white background can’t do that, and when I read them again, my words didn’t say what I really meant to say.  I felt like an idiot.

So I posted another comment, explaining what I’d really meant, and apologizing if I sounded like an idiot.

Then I felt like an idiot apologizing for being an idiot.  Sheesh.

Life would be so much easier if we could just do a Vulcan mind-meld.  Then we could understand each other completely, bang, in a single moment.  Imagine the time and frustration it would save.

Then again, I’m not sure anybody would want to mind-meld with me.  You really don’t want to know what’s lurking inside this skull.  Maybe Harry Potter’s Pensieve would be a better solution.  Just yank out the specific thought you want to convey and pass it on.

Hmm.  Nice idea, but I don’t know where to get a Pensieve.  Maybe I’ll just get a T-shirt that says, “I’m not really an idiot, I just sound like one sometimes.”

At least I hope it’s only sometimes.

Did any of this make sense?

Show Me Your Tool

/ Diane Henders / 28 Comments

I was struck by an epiphany the other day.  And yes, it left a nasty mark; thanks for asking.  I won’t offer to show you the mark, but the gist of the epiphany was this:  If you’re considering a serious relationship with a man, ask to see his tool first.

It’s not about size.  It’s what he does with it that counts.

If a man refuses to show you his tool, run away.  A man who has no pride in his tool isn’t even worth considering.

If he does show it to you, you can infer a lot by observing the type and condition of his tool.  In particular, get him to show you his torque wrench.  It tells you everything you need to know about him.

In the first place, owning a torque wrench indicates some automotive know-how and a willingness to get his hands dirty.  This is good.  Tread cautiously if he doesn’t own a torque wrench at all.

The cleanliness of the tool is important, but don’t generalize this statement to his box-end wrenches or sockets.  They’re meant to be ingrained with black grease.  In fact, if a guy’s box-end is too clean, watch out.  You may be dealing with a compulsive neat freak.

The torque wrench, however, is a precision instrument, so it should be relatively well-kept.  Is his tool shiny and clean, or caked with nameless grime?  If he doesn’t take care of his tool, don’t let him anywhere near you.

The type of torque wrench is also instructive.

  • Beam-Type:  A beam-type torque wrench is a solid, flexible tool that’s good enough to do most jobs.  Its owner is an easy-going guy who isn’t extravagant.  He cares enough to do the job right, but he won’t drive you insane over tiny details.
  • Click-Type:  A man with a click-type torque wrench offers you a rigid, accurate tool that’s a joy to use and handle.  He will do the job with enthusiastic precision.
  • Electronic:  Ah, the electronic torque wrench.  Yeah, it’s impressive at first glance, but does he know what to do with it?  Some guys can handle these bad boys just fine, but this can also be a sign of anal-retentive pickiness and a tendency to overcompensate.

Brand can be difficult to interpret.  If his tool is Snap-On brand, ask some pointed questions to determine whether he is, in fact, a pit rat at the local track and/or a qualified mechanic.  If the answer is yes, you can relax.  This is a guy with a high-quality tool, and he knows how to use it.  This is the way life should be.

But if he’s just a backyard mechanic, a premium brand like Snap-On could go either way.  On one hand, he might be a spendthrift who’s hung up on brands and status symbols.  On the other hand, he might have lots of money and appreciate the finer things in life.  Tough call, but consider this:  a guy with a Snap-On tool is pretty much every woman’s dream.

I have both a beam-type and a click-type, and I’m not going to speculate what that says about me.  But here’s some free advice for my male readers, too:  If you find a woman who owns any kind of torque wrench, it means she knows how to handle tools, and she’ll know how to appreciate a good one when she finds it.

You can thank me later.

I Dream Of Dillweed

/ Diane Henders / 19 Comments

Or maybe that’s “dickweed”.  Let me explain.

I’ve been sick for the past couple of weeks, but I’m all better now.  For those of you making the obvious “sick mind” jokes, just… well, yeah, okay.  I guess I can’t argue.

However, now I understand the true meaning of the phrase “fevered dreams”.  And lucky you, I’m going to share.  Hang on, ‘cause here we go:

A large group of Puritans stands silent and stock-still, all eyes fixed on me.  Men, women, and children, all garbed in sombre black with white lacy collars.  They just stare.  I don’t know why.  Their holy book is a catalogue of hand-crocheted sweater patterns.  On the front is a photo of a blonde fashion model wearing a lacy, openwork yellow sweater.

I’m not even going to try to analyze that little vignette.  But as the night wore on, my brain started to serve up coherent stories that only changed when I realized they were dreams.

The scarred, grizzled leader of a bike gang gets into my car and informs me that I will be hosting a party for the gang.  It will be a barbeque, and we discuss the menu while I drive to town to buy groceries.  They’ll have New York steaks, and I will make my famous potato salad.  Baked beans are discussed and agreed upon.  I do not find this funny.  I know as soon as the steaks are grilled to medium-rare perfection, I’ll become the evening’s entertainment.  My chances of survival are slim. Death will be merciful.

All very dark and threatening, but the dream continues:  They will bring their own beer.

Then I knew I had to be dreaming, so my brain switched scenes:

I awaken lying prone on a grey marble roof.  My drink is beside me, the glass slithering over the slippery curved edge as I open my eyes.  Sheer terror seizes me when I make a grab for my drink and realize I am hundreds of stories above the ground.  I jerk away from the edge, and irritation overcomes me.  I mutter, “Well, shit, I’m just going to throw these blankets over the edge and hope there’s nobody underneath when they hit, because I’m not climbing all the way back up here to get them.”

I must have made it down from the rooftop safely, because next thing I knew, I was a nurse.

I watch an angry-looking uniformed woman stride across the hallway, and my inner narrator dictates, “The administrator had heard about the blocked toilet ten minutes ago.  This allowed her nine and a half minutes to be furious.” 

For some reason, the narrator thinks these two sentences are sheer literary genius and must be written down at the first opportunity.  (And I just did.  Hmmm.)

Anyway, that dream went on, too:  I am one of a team of several nurses who must lift a six-hundred-pound patient.  As we gather around him, he booms, “Hell, my dick is 330 pounds alone!  It could be even bigger if I wanted.  Every day I rub it with dillweed!”

I wake with the triumphant bellow of “Dillweed!” still echoing in my mind.

Welcome to my brain.  Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

P.S.  Wanna buy some dillweed?  I hear it’s great for… well, you know.

Happy New Y… Wait, Where Are My Clothes?

/ Diane Henders / 19 Comments

It’s a sad fact that I’m long past the age when that question should be on my lips.  It’s also a sad fact that I asked myself that very question this New Year’s Eve.

I only had three pints.  Honest.  And I was home by 9 PM.

In my defense, I was fighting a cold, and I didn’t feel much like eating.  Many people would consider it unwise to start slugging down beer when one’s entire food consumption for the day has been two slices of toast, an apple, a granola bar, and some guacamole.  Apparently, I am not one of those people.

The beer was very tasty.  I had good intentions to anchor it with a pizza, but the pub cook dropped my pizza in the kitchen (no, I’m not making that up).  So they had to make it again, and by the time it arrived, I’d already downed a pint.

Let’s just say it was a very effective pint.  I strive for efficiency in all things, and in this case I outdid myself.  By the time the pizza arrived, it was far too late to act as an anchor.  All it did was bob like a pathetic dinghy in the rough swells of my second pint.

The third pint was, frankly, unnecessary.  But oh, so tasty.

At approximately 1.2 pints, I achieved the correct level of intoxication for shooting eight-ball.  Anything under a pint, and I’m trying too hard.  At the magical “optimum beer saturation level” (OBSL), pool becomes easy.  I can still triangulate with both eyeballs.  I effortlessly calculate angles, the cue feels like an extension of my own arm, and I sink balls one after the other, swaggering around the table with only a tiny bit of cockiness to clear the table and sink the eight-ball.

The problem is, it’s impossible to maintain OBSL.  Exactly one game after achieving it, it slips away again, at which point I might as well try to guide the cue ball using the Force.  ‘Cause I sure as hell can’t guide it with the cue anymore.

We rang in the New Year for St. John’s, Newfoundland at 8:30 local time (thank goodness we live in a multiple-time-zone country), and headed home.  Walking, fortunately.  At least the cold didn’t bother me.

I went upstairs to change my clothes.

I couldn’t find them.

I stumbled around the bedroom, looking in all the usual places.  Closet: Nope.  Bathroom:  Nuh-uh.  Chair in the corner:  Not there either.  At last, I discovered them cleverly hidden in plain sight, lying on the bed.  (It was dark in there.  Never mind.)

I’m a little foggy on how that could have happened, because when I know I’m going to put the same clothes on later, I usually leave them where I removed them.  The walk-in closet and the ensuite bathroom are the usual locations.  If I had actually taken off my clothes beside the bed, I’d have been mooning the neighbours.  And that was when I was sober.

I guess I’ll never know for sure.  But if the neighbours avert their eyes and snicker the next time they see me, I’ll have a pretty good idea.

Happy New Beer!

Why Orange Plastic Palm Trees?

/ Diane Henders / 25 Comments

Okay, I just have to say it.  What is it with brightly coloured plastic palm trees?  Up until a few years ago, I’d never seen one.  Then one day I noticed a pair of them in front of a Chinese food restaurant in Cochrane, Alberta.  I tried to be polite.  I averted my eyes from the garish spectacle and pretended I hadn’t seen them.

But, like dog balls, they were lamentably conspicuous.  And that comparison is actually quite apropos, when you take the plastic coconuts into account.  Unlike dog balls, however, one was bright yellow, and the other was bright orange.  And they lit up at night.  The trees, not the testicles.

Ooh.  Now I’m having a really disturbing mental image.  ‘Scuse me while I swill brain bleach through my ears.

Anyway, I thought these misplaced, misguided items were pretty much one of a kind.  Because really, who’d want twenty-foot-high psychedelic illuminated plastic palm trees?  In Alberta?

I got over my antipathy, because the food was (and is) excellent there.  The décor of the whole restaurant is slightly schizophrenic anyway.  The floor is constructed of dark-stained rough-hewn wooden planks that would be appropriate in a western saloon.  The windows stretch from floor to ceiling, twenty feet high, clad in sweeping, formal peach-coloured brocade draperies sashed with heavy burgundy satin tasselled ropes.  The walls are decorated with bright-red Chinese weavings, and there’s a blue-and-white porcelain fountain and a temporary tattoo dispenser in the lobby.  When you think about it, the palm trees fit right in.

But really, one of a kind, right?

Fast forward to yesterday.  I’m heading out to Manitoba again for the next couple of weeks, and I was somewhere between Medicine Hat, Alberta and Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan when my horrified gaze was captured by… you guessed it.

A plastic palm tree.  Mounted on a campground sign beside the TransCanada highway, in the middle of Saskatchewan.

I would have pulled over to snap a picture, but I was doing 110 km/hr, and, frankly, I thought I might be seeing things.  It’s a long drive, after all.  But it was still there when I looked in the rearview mirror, so I’m pretty sure I didn’t hallucinate it.  And I’m pretty sure the green flecks in those brownies were zucchini.

When I searched “orange plastic palm tree” on the internet, I discovered these trees are apparently much more common than I thought.  There were a startling number of photos.  In fact, I ran across one photo of one with a multi-coloured trunk, striped in blue, brown, yellow and white.

Which leads me back to my original question:  WHY?

Yes, it can get pretty depressing living in a country where it’s winter eight months of the year.  Yes, I know what it’s like to be so desperate for the sight of something not-white that you watch the golf channel just for the sake of seeing green grass and water that isn’t frozen.

But if that’s the motivation, then why not buy a fake palm tree that looks like a palm tree?  Green.  With a brown trunk.

I guess it’s just one of the great mysteries of life.  So the only logical answer to “Why?” is “42”.

Cooking With Spam

/ Diane Henders / 15 Comments

I have a sneaking sympathy for the manufacturers of SPAM, that “is-it-really-meat” product my mother usually fried with a crunchy coating of cracker crumbs.  It must be tough on their self-image to be associated with worthless, annoying email.  Maybe that’s why I keep an open mind to the humorous potential of the spam I get on this blog.

Most of it is the garden-variety “buy our product” crap, but every now and then, a true gem lodges in my spam filters to tickle my funny-bone.

For instance:  “Excellently constructed report, if all people offered a similar posts just like you, the net would be a more desirable destination.”  I’ve seen that particular comment umpteen times, but in this case the context made me laugh when it appeared on my post “Gettin’ Down At A Piss-Up”.  Soooo… piss-ups are a desirable destination… yeah, okay, I’ll give you that one.

Or how about this one: “…you still take care of to keep it wise.”  …Except for the fact that my post was titled “Brainless”…

And then there was the warmly complimentary, “Excellent facts many thanks for posting about it.”  I might have let that one slide under other circumstances, but my post was “Barbie, Celebrity Affairs, and Altering Reality” – a post entirely devoted to the rambling fantasies of my deranged mind.

Then there are the ones I suspect are secret communications in a clever code.  Maybe they think since I write spy fiction, I’ll be able to decipher their messages.  For example:  “I’m gonna watch out for brussels.”  Oooookay, then.  Good to know.  I’ll watch out for brussels, too.  Are we talkin’ sprouts, European cities, or what?

This cryptic comment really made me wonder:  “tiger blood?”  That was it.  No other information.  Just the question mark, which was obviously intended to be a clue.  As in, “Do we have a go for our covert op that’s so badass we code-named it ‘tiger blood’?”  Or maybe it’s an honest question:  “Is that tiger blood?  Or just ketchup?”  Or wait a minute, maybe it’s a comment on my savage beauty, my untamed… aah, never mind.  Probably not.

But, hell, maybe there is some irresistible attraction at work here.  I just got this comment:  “I got what you think, thanks for swing up. Woh I am glad to gestate this website”.  Well, if you’re swinging, I think you probably got the clap.  I haven’t heard the euphemism “swing up” before, but it seems to me a swing-up would be better than a swing-down.  I think a swing-down would make it much more difficult to gestate.  Besides, a swing-down just seems so… dejected.  Deflated.  Flaccid.  (Yeah, I used that word).

But, like gonorrhea, my visitor’s enthusiasm is infectious.  “Woh I am glad to gestate this website!”

Hey, I’m easy.  Flattery will get you everywhere.  Gestate away to your heart’s content.  Just wash your hands before you come to the table.

‘Scuse me while I go fry some of these up with cracker crumbs.

Making Up Is Hard To Blue

/ Diane Henders / 17 Comments

Ah, the festive season.  A time when most women look forward to getting dolled up with glamorous makeup and swanky little cocktail dresses.  (I said swanky, not skanky.  Don’t put words in my mouth.)

I, on the other hand, try to attend only events where I can wear jeans and swill beer in my usual bare-faced comfort.

Once upon a time, I wore makeup.  And by “once upon a time”, I don’t mean, literally, “once”.  I mean there was a time in my life, decades ago, when I actually wore it frequently.  There are many good reasons why I stopped wearing it.  Here’s one of them.

Blue eyeshadow was fashionable when I was in junior high school.  I was a geeky kid.  The eyeshadow package had instructions.  What could possibly go wrong?

My younger sister was involved in a school Christmas concert.  Mom had to be there early to help out, and Dad was to bring me along later, in time for the actual performance.

Feeling very grown-up, I decided to wear my new eyeshadow.  The package contained two shades of vivid blue.  I read the instructions carefully.  They said something like, “Apply darker shade on eyelid and blend lighter shade up to brow bone”.

This confused me.  I thought eyeshadow was supposed to go on the eyelids.  My brow bone seemed a helluva long way up there.

I spent a short time puzzling over the exact definition of “brow bone”, but I didn’t think there was a hidden meaning.  I seem to recall actually looking it up in the encyclopedia to make sure I’d gotten it right (I told you I was a geek).  No alternate definitions for “brow bone”.

Little did I know that researching “brow bone” was the wrong approach.  I should have researched the word “blend”.  Or maybe looked in a fashion magazine to see how the real makeup artists did it, though that’s an iffy proposition at best.

Cheerfully oblivious to better judgement, I smeared blue eyeshadow all the way up to my eyebrows.

Dad made no comment, and off we went.

We arrived in the already dimmed auditorium and found seats.  Just before the show began, my mother arrived to join us.  I distinctly remember the look of horror on her face, but I can’t remember exactly what she said.  The gist of her reaction was, “You let her go out looking like that?!?”

To which Dad replied with his usual honesty, “It all looks awful to me.  I couldn’t tell the difference.”

I’d like to say I learned my lesson that night and always applied my makeup tastefully from then on.  Sadly, however, photographic evidence suggests otherwise.  I respectfully submit that I may have been the main reason behind blue eyeshadow’s subsequent decline in popularity.  Don’t say I never did anything for you.

These days, I only wear makeup when I’m having pictures taken, which mercifully only happens once every few years.  I wear the makeup for exactly long enough to have the picture taken, and then I immediately go home and scrub it all off.

Earth tones only.  Never, ever blue eyeshadow.

A Dave By Any Other Name

/ Diane Henders / 19 Comments

I’ve been called a lot of different names in my lifetime, sometimes by people sincerely trying to get my name right; other times not so much.  Like a dog, I focus on the intonation, not the actual words.  “Sweetheart” can sound really hostile, and “Hey, Buttbrain” can warm my heart.

Not that anybody’s ever called me Buttbrain.  This week.

Some people seem to accumulate nicknames more easily than others, but I suspect there are a couple of factors that influence the process.  The truly cool nicknames usually get applied to people who’ve either done something truly cool, or truly dumb.  Besides that (dubious) qualification, it seems to me the quality of one’s nickname says more about the creativity of one’s friends than anything else.

I wasn’t overly popular in school.

Wait, gotta run.  Minions of the Society for the Eradication of Ridiculous Understatement are breaking down my door to drag me away…

Okay, I’m back.  Phew.  Lucky I learned those ninja skills while the cool kids were attending all their cool parties.

I didn’t do anything particularly dumb in school, and I missed “truly cool” by an embarrassingly wide margin.  My nickname in school was “Fender Bender”, which sounds kinda cool now, but in fact had nothing to do with my driving skills and everything to do with the fact that those are the first two words in alphabetical order that rhyme with “Henders”.

Those who knew me in university might consider “Fender Bender” appropriate, but that wasn’t related to my driving, either.  Suffice it to say that you don’t want to narrowly miss running over me in a crosswalk.  I get irate when I’m scared shitless.

Later, I acquired some more predictable nicknames:  “Di”, and, while Charles and Diana were an item, “Lady Di”, which caused considerable amusement to those who knew me well.  Ain’t no ladies here.

Oh, and I was briefly nicknamed “Garbage Gut”, “Mongo”, and “Anklebiter” in university, but those were just passing phases.

My all-time favourite nickname was “Dave”.  Back when I was a geek…  Oh, never mind.

Back when I was being paid to be a geek, the vendors apparently decided a mere woman couldn’t possibly deal with the intricacies of building computers and networks, so they christened me “Dave”.  For the last several years I held that job, most of my outside correspondence arrived addressed to “Dave Henders”.

I didn’t really mind.  I figured Dave was probably a pretty cool guy.  In fact, I developed a fondness for Dave, so I named a character in my fourth book after him.

The rest of my handles were either insults or endearments, none of them particularly interesting or creative.  Though Hubby does call me Gorgeous on occasion, which is just one of the many reasons why I love him.

So, to quote the old chestnut:  Call me anything you like; just don’t call me late for dinner.

Or you can call me Dave.  That works, too.

What are (were) your nicknames?