Hello, My Name Is Town.

Weird nicknames run in my family. Some families have diabetes, some have red hair, we have nonsensical monikers. Phyl's mother, Elinor, was probably the one who started this. I don't think my mother and her two brothers even knew their real names until they started school. Mom was generally called "Gags" around the house. This is an awful-sounding word, but not nearly as bad as her other nickname, which seems to have just spurted out of my grandmother's mouth in a torrent of verbal diarrhea - "Pubus Regonia." Read that again. See if you can say it without either laughing or throwing up in your mouth. Can you imagine a childhood in which you are known by something as stupid as "Pubus Regonia," or, for short, "Regs?" I can. I was and still am generally known as "Town." Just "Town." Sometimes my family sings a medley of songs to me that involve the word "Town." I'll walk into a room and hear "When you've got worries go doooownToooown! O little Town of Bethlehem!" and et cetera. I would say it's the stupidest nickname I've ever heard, but for my poor brother, who has had so many ridiculous names that he now answers to almost anything shouted up the stairs. It doesn't even faze him. Some of my favorites have been Flumby, Line Pine, and Goobsie. Yes, my brother, the future lawyer. Goobsie.

I blame this on my mom and grandma, but so help me, I'm just as bad. I've called my father "Pim" for years. I have no idea why. And my husband, Andy, has been Hobs now for about three weeks. It just tumbles out of my mouth like a toaster in an avalanche. I have no control over it. Ask my son, Charlie, who has never been called anything except "Scoob" in the fifteen months of his strange little life.

To top it all of, my mom's name isn't even Phyllis. It's Gayle. This whole blog is based on a lie.

I need to lay down.