And His Name Shall Be Thomas...Or Not.

We had a "get together" in May to celebrate the end of a decade of college. Okay..over a decade...but whatever. We had two of our "couple friends" over - Ken & Sunita and Bryan & Julie - our top two "couple friends" at the time. Julie was pregnant. Her original due date was June 6..which means her kid's birthday would be 6/6/06. So we all made fun of her and said that she's carrying Satan's spawn..like Damien. She's got a good sense of humor about it, but she told us that the doctor said her new due date was May 31. All of us always wondered if she was just telling us that so we'd stop with the Lucifer jokes.

But anyways...I could understand how that could annoy her after awhile. But that's not the awkward part. At the time, they were discussing the idea of naming their baby Thomas. It's a good Christian name. It's nothing out of the ordinary...a good, all-American boy name. You got your Thomas Edison, your St. Thomas Aquinas, your Dave Thomas - the founder of Wendy's. Mmmmmmm...Wendy's

Anyways..one thing that they really liked about Thomas is that nobody can really make fun of his name like most kids do. They said they spent a lot of time trying to find a name that nothing rhymed with and that nobody could find anything to make fun of. Such as, oh..say Dennis could be Dennis the Menace. Another friend of mine - I won't name him because he might get mad...but his last name rhymed with "rusty booty." So he went through hell.

But Bryan and Julie took great pride in the fact that nobody could make fun of the name Thomas....until me. After they talked about how great the name Thomas was, I said, "What about Tom - Ass?" Everybody looked at me, but I was the only one laughing. It was a silent moment. Then it turned into a few silent moments. So I tried to relieve the awkwardness and said, "Maybe I'll just call him Tom or Tommy..how's that?" Diana didn't try to save me this time like she usually does when I say things that aren't socially acceptable. I think she rejoiced in my squirming. Julie looked at me and said, "Well, how about we won't let you call him anything...how's that?" They left soon afterwards.