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Thursday, October 20, 2005

Call me Ishmael

I've spent my life enduring a myriad of nicknames-- some welcomed, some not.

My friends in pre-school dubbed me the inevitable "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater".

My best friend in grade school called me "Peebee".

My mom used to call me "Peter-roo" (and if you know me personally and ever call me this, I will be royally pissed).

My fraternity brothers dubbed me "Petsey Fly".

My wife calls me all sorts of things from "Schmoopie" to "Honey-kins" to "Bunny", ad nauseum.

But the one nickname that I've never shaken was the one that was given to me in high school-- Tampson.

To this day, I am known in certain circles as Tampson. It all evolved from these two guys who I wasn't even really friends with (guys who named themselves "Larry Begina" and "T.T. Boyd") that got a kick out of calling me by my last name-- Thompson-- in a ridiculous Boston accent. "Hey Tampson, wanna get some chackolate and come cahfee? Maybe some sahsage?" (Think "Pahk Yah Cahr At Hahvahd Yahd" style Boston accent.) My friends picked up on this almost immediately... it made sense because I was one of two Pete's and this made it easier to differentiate.

While I have now gotten used to being called Tampson, I had reservations at first. Mainly, I was a bit concerned that a dyslexic might think people were calling me tampons. And plus, I wasn't really huge fans of Larry Begina and TT Boyd, but after a while, I got used to it.

And I'll be at the office or in a crowd of people calling one of my high school friends and refer to myself as "Tampson", and people will give me strange looks...

But I am not ashamed. Not at all.

I am Tampson.

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