Where Everybody Knows Your Name (Thursday Thirteen #15)

The other day I was at the dentist getting my TMJ splint adjusted. It’s working better than expected and I can completely open my mouth, eat, chew and have no face, neck, shoulder and back pain any more. I even got used to my Angelina lips! This is great news!

The bad news is that since I can do all of these things, the current splint that I was wearing needed to be adjusted. By adjusted, I mean a piece needed to be added to it. Before, it looked like I could have been out in public wearing Invisalign braces that had a Jujube candy stuck to the front. Not real attractive, but my family and friends, in all of their niceness, insisted that it didn’t look bad and they wouldn’t have even noticed it. (sure!).

Anyway, now it looks like Invisalign braces with a mini version of something I saw in a sex toy catalog once. (My husband made me look, I swear!) Forget my Angelina lips, I now look like Little Oral Annie. I am not wearing that in public anymore. Nighttime wear is going to have to be sufficient.

This miniature phallic symbol addition is attached to the mouthpiece and protrudes from my lips by about a half-inch. I asked the dentist if he was serious and he said something that made me cringe worse than the image in the mirror.

“Jessie, it doesn’t look bad at all. No one will notice the difference.”

Yes, they will, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was he called me “Jessie”.

I’m funny about what people call me. I’m not crazy about the “Jessie” nickname, but my mom is and that’s what she always calls me. I’m used to hearing my immediate family use that name but they are the only people I allow to do so.

Today is Thursday Thirteen and here’s mine....

Thirteen NAMES OTHER PEOPLE CALL ME 1. Jess. This is always acceptable. 2. The kids on the block all call me “Miss Jessica”. I didn’t like this at first either, but I’ve gotten used to it. It’s far better than the alternative, which is... 3. Mrs. MyLastName, or even worse, Mrs. MyExHusbandsLastName. I know, it’s polite and yes, I expect my kids to call adults Mrs. Whatever unless directed otherwise. I have asked kids to please call me “Miss Jessica” and have been told their parents won’t let them. Personally, I think it’s impolite to continue to call someone something they have asked not to be called. Just my opinion. 4. Cat or JessiCat. That was one heck of a Halloween costume. 5. Flaca. It means “skinny” in Spanish. My ex-husband still calls me this. Believe me, it’s much nicer than the nicknames I’ve given him. 6. My sister and my former high school swing choir partners call me "Juice Bang”. I know, it sounds perverted, but since I was voted “Most Likely To Become A Nun” in high school, this isn’t the case. Once, in a swing choir and solo competition way back when, I belted out a version of the 1981 hit “Angel of the Morning” which prompted one of the judges (named Betty Bang) to “ooh” and “ahh” and say I sounded better than Juice Newton. Jess sounds like Juice and it kind of took it’s own life from there. When I actually won the competition, they turned into a cheer of sorts on the bus ride home. Juice Bang, Juice Bang, oooooh, ahhhhhh! Juice Bang, Juice Bang, oooooh, ahhhhhh! From that moment on, I was referred to as: “JuiceBang squared, ooh ahh quantity squared”. Ahhh, high school! Gotta love it! 7. Jennifer. Since I just dated myself with that song title, I’ll ‘fess up. When I was born in 1966, nobody was named Jessica. Almost everyone, though, was named Jennifer. Until the 80’s trend of naming baby girls Jessica, I was the only one. (Well, ok, there was Jessica Lang, too.) People frequently called me Jennifer in error. It happened so often that I just gave up correcting people and I still answer to that to this day. 8. Remember yesterday's post when I was ranting about my parking ticket? Well, as I said, I used to work as a Community Service Officer. Part of that job was parking and village tag (CITY STICKER!) enforcement. Several times a year we would be forced onto the midnight shift to sneak around checking parked cars for village tags. In order not to fall asleep in the middle of a side street with the car in gear and my foot on the brake (that never happened, I swear!), I wrote tickets. Lots of them. I came in after one shift with 423 parking tickets and earned my police department nickname......Hammer. This was good because if you work in a police department and don’t get a nickname, it means nobody likes you and you probably won’t be there very long. My hubby’s police department nickname is JW (John Wayne), which has been shortened to the more trendy J. Dub. 9. In addition to “Hammer”, when I married JW, I also became known as Mrs. JW by some of our closer police friends. They are also my poker buddies and Mrs. JW is my online poker playing screen name. 10. Dingy. Yes, I’ve had more than a few Edith Bunker moments in my life where I’ve definitely earned myself this nickname. 11. HBD. It’s my hubby’s pet name for me. It means Honey, Baby, Darling. Awwwwwwww! 12. RC or The Rock Chick. I’m totally more of a choir chick, but I have great friends and they know I wannabe so they humor me with this title. 13. Mom. No explanations needed. This one’s my favorite :) Hope everyone has a very Happy Mother's Day!!!

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