PUSSY GALORE, MEET MRS PLOD-ALONG

I always wanted a cool nickname. As cool as The Fonz or Mr. October, or cute and sexy like, you know, Pussy Galore.  

Well today the dream died. It happened whilst I was dropping the kids off at school. I was late as usual, and all psyched up to negotiate the school’s door security (double doors, outer lobby, entry buzzer concealed behind massive papier-mache dinosaur, more double doors, another lobby, you get the picture), when a woman I know suddenly said, “Look at you, Mrs Plod-Along. I love your style.”

Mrs Plod-Along?  MRS.PLOD.ALONG?

Deep breath. Chill out. I know that what she really meant was “I love your devil-may-care attitude towards lateness.” (How could she know that beneath my carefree exterior lies pain, paranoia, exhaustion and self-loathing?) But still! Mrs Plod-Along!  Are you sure? Don’t you mean Pussy Galore? Didn’t you see the way I emerged Bond-Girl-like from those puddles at the other end of the yard?

For fucksakes.

And so it is that ‘Mrs Plod-Along’ joins a long list of mocking epithets, confidence-sapping sobriquets, or, in other words, totally and utterly shitty nicknames. Such as:

• ‘Butterfingers’. This was my name during Rounders - or as I prefer to call it - Bullying. 

• ‘Common, Coarse and Crude’. My brother’s name for me. Probably because I once said “bloody hell” or “for godsakes” during grace. Other variations included “Plebeian Prostitute”, “Debauched and Disgusting”, and, in a reckless departure from alliteration, “Vile Troll”.

• In university, an ex-boyfriend referred to me as ‘Fister’. I won’t expand on the reasons - this is a family-friendly blog - except to say that he never complained about my technique at the time. He’s the bloody w**ker if you ask me.

• Today, my partner has a nickname for me. It is ‘The Bottomless Pit of Need’. I don’t think he means bottomless in the sense of ‘having no bottom’. (I have a bottom, although it is nothing like Pippa Middleton’s bottom, more like Shrek’s.) What I think he means is that, sometimes, I like to engage him in conversation.  

So until someone comes up with something better, like Pussy Galore, I think I’ll stick with Flossing the Cat. 

PS: I’ve just found a Facebook page called I Hate Rounders. Please please like it. It’s SUCH a good cause.


PPS: Fister - IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK.  

PPPS: Any other shitty nicknames you’d like to share? Anyone? I feel so alone here. Motherventing, Older Mum, SAHDANDPROUD? Get out of deep field. You have been tagged.