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Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Time (or Tim) in a bottle


My first name is Tim, just Tim and not Timothy. My mother picked it out of a name the baby book at the hospital while she was waiting to in the delivery room. She justified naming me Tim and not Timothy with the simple logic that everyone would call me Tim anyway. So of course I grew up wishing my name was Timothy and not just Tim.

My middle initial is "E." And no, the "E" does not stand for "Elvis." My mother was not an Elvis
fan. Elvis was not having a very good year when I was born anyway. He had been drafted into the army and his mother died. Though I do think I have a cousin who married a man named Elvis. But suffice it to say, my middle name is not Elvis.

Anyway, my legal name is Tim E. *****. I have always used my middle initial because Tim ***** is a pretty common name and I've never liked the idea of being one of many Tim *****'s. So I figure there are fewer Tim E. *****'s. The only problem with being Tim E. ***** is that it is very easy for people keying in information on applications and mailing lists to make a mistake and leave out that space between Tim and "E." When this happens, I become Time *****. It took me weeks one time, after being issued a credit card by BP Oil, to convince them that my name wasn't Time *****.

I don't really have a problem with being called Time. If my mother had been a little more forward thinking and named me Time, it would have presented me with plenty of pick up lines when I was single:

HEY, LOOKING FOR A GOOD TIME? YOU JUST FOUND HIM!

or

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TIME ON YOUR HANDS?

If I was a male escort, my marketing headline would be "IF YOU'VE GOT THE MONEY, HONEY, YOU'VE GOT THE TIME!"

I am going to resist saying anything about DOING HARD TIME or YOUR TIME HAS COME. That would be vulgar.

Now if my mom had really wanted to be clever, she could have named me Thyme. That would have been a little spicy! But growing up in Idaho, it would very likely have got me beat up a great deal in school.

But alas, I am simply Tim. And unfortunately, it is a name that defies greatness. There has never been a president of the United States named Tim (although the first governor of the free state of Ireland was named Tim H*****). Tim isn't formal enough to command the respect a great leader needs. Tim is a diminuative name. It is a Leprechan name. It's okay for country music singers and Irish bartenders, but it lacks the formality people associate with notable achievement. Oh, there was the Tim, the Enchanter from Monty Python's Holy Grail, but I wouldn't consider him an over achiever.

In a name sense, I'm kind of screwed. So you can see why I slap the hypenated -Elvis onto my name to add a little bit of potential greatness to my name Karma.

Though as William Shakespeare said, "A rose by any other name..." But that was easy for him to say. His name was William, not Will or Will E. Then maybe he would have had to call him self Will-Elvis.

Something to think about anyway.

4 comments:

Time said...

Okay Cherish, I'll try it. But Just-Tim just doesn't have the same ring to it as Tim-Elvis :)>

Naughti Biscotti said...

Doing hard time...... haaaaa haaaaa !!!! I'm so very glad you weren't vulgar. Whatever would we think? :-)

Time Heals all wounds.

Time said...

Shandi! Time Heals! I love it! And it isn't even dirty!

Cherish, Thank you! You are too kind, but I greatly appreciate it.

R. said...

I dunno, I think the naming scheme in your family branch contains a kind of simple wisdom.

Should we be afflicted with children we plan to name them after programming languages.