Nicknames
Judy Conlin
Nurse Judy, my “thinks she’s so smart” alter ego, is on a new kick. She’s found one more way to make fun of me. Now, I don’t mind being made fun of if it is current and funny. In fact, I have the most fun making fun of myself. But when someone is still trying to make fun of me for something that happened years ago and constantly brings it up, I get a little irritated. Nurse Judy has no limits.
What is this new kick Nurse Judy is on? Well, she’s telling anyone who will listen that I have had many nicknames throughout my life, and not one of them indicates that I have any more intelligence than an amoeba. (That may be the wrong word, since I don’t know how much intelligence an amoeba has.) Anyhow, she’s got me riled up.
“What do you mean by telling everyone that my nicknames show that I’m dumb?” I ask.
She’s prepared. She’s done her homework.
“Your first nickname was ‘Bug.’ How did that come about?”
“I couldn’t sit still when I was little,” I say, “and my uncle started calling me ‘Judy Jitterbug.’ That got shortened to ‘Judybug,’ and then to ‘Bug.’ Soon, everyone in the family just called me ‘the Bug.’ They would say things like, ‘Where’s the Bug?’ or ‘What is the Bug doing?’”
“And what do you think the IQ of a bug is?” she asks.
I get her point, but I forge on.
“I think they did it out of love, and besides, there is hardly anyone left who still calls me that.”
“You didn’t improve in nursing school,” she says with a smirk. “The interns all called you ‘Mia,’ which they said meant ‘my little one.’”
I smile at the memory.
“They were just flirtatious,” I say.
“Or they could have been describing your nursing abilities,” she says cruelly.
“I was a great nurse,” I yell. “Top of my class.”
“Calm down,” she says. “What about that director in your acting class who was much younger than you but always called you ‘Baby Girl’?” she asks. “How smart is a baby?”
I think about this. Some babies are smarter than others, but I surely hope I have more intellect than the smartest baby.
I finally say, “I don’t think she meant that in a derogatory way. I think she actually liked me.”
“Well, people can like a blithering idiot,” she says. “They just pat them on the head and smile.”
I am now really upset, stamping my feet and screaming, “I am not a blithering idiot.”
She remains calm and unyielding.
“You’ve been called ‘Honey,’ ‘Sweetie,’ ‘Dolly,’ ‘Precious,’ ‘Nitwit,’ ‘Funny Girl’ and ‘Fruitcake.’ None of these show that you are respected as even having a fraction of a brain.”
I have no way of combating this barrage, even though I have been called all of these at some time or other. I just believe that they were thrown about as terms of affection. I choose to believe that.
They say if you can’t fight it, join it, but I will never give in to this heartless creature. I will find a way to get even.
I think and I think. How can I get even? Then an idea hits me. I am ready for her.
I go to her and say, “Nurse Judy, you have no nicknames. No one ever had enough affection for you to give you a nickname. Just look at your name. You call yourself Nurse Judy. You are not even a nurse. I’m the one who earned that title. You just stole it with no work at all. You call yourself Judy. That’s another fabrication. I’m Judy. You are not. You are nothing, unless perhaps a figment of someone’s imagination. What do you think of that?”
There is a long silence.
Then a very small voice answers, “Okay, Smarty Pants.”
I am delighted. Not only did I best my nemesis, but I finally got a nickname that shows at least my pants are smart.
More later,
Judy
www.nursejudyinfo.com
