What's in a name?

For those of you who have just started reading my blog: welcome.  You picked a good time to join in because today I am going to explain the hidden meaning behind "Gidget's Two Cents." From my profile you can already tell my given name is not Gidget.  However, I am a girl of many names: Christine, Christy, Chris, Crustybagel, Jezebel, Blossom, Christine-Marie, and of course "Gidget." For whatever reason, those closest to me have taken to calling me different things.  Shortened versions of my real name are logical and make the most sense.  Names like Jezebel, Crustybagel, Blossom, and Gidget are the fun ones that keep you guessing.

I'll start with Crustybagel as it is one of the older nicknames I've been dubbed.  Back in middle school when e-mail was becoming popular I had a hard time coming up with a unique name for my email address.  I didn't want a boring email address comprised of my first initial and last name or any other combination of such.  My friend Nick always called me Crusty instead of Christy and my friend Jon always called me Bagel instead of my surname Biegel.  Hence Crustybagel.  This email address became quite the ice breaker when applying for jobs and interviewing.  I actually believe, against all they warned against in college, that having a unique email address gave my employers insight into the fun-loving person I am.  Working in HR though, I will still stand by discouraging the youth of today to apply to jobs with email addresses including profanity, anything sexual in nature, and anything drug related.  Enough said.

Blossom and Jezebel originated around the same time during college.  Professor Snow took to calling me Blossom because he thought I looked just like the girl from the television show.  A bit Punky Brewster maybe (I know I'm dating myself), but I didn't really see the Blossom resemblance.  At any rate I learned quite a bit from his computer classes and a very important life motto: "If you're early you're on-time, if you 're on-time you're late, and if you're late you may as well not show up."  As for the name Jezebel, my good friend Rebecca (aka Beeks) always called me that and to this day I'm really not sure why.  It has a nice ring to it though.

Gidget has to be one of my favorite nicknames though.  When I was little I spent a lot of time at my paternal Grandmother's house in the summer helping my step-grandfather Don out with odd jobs.  He took to calling me Gidget.  He found a magazine clipping of the name, glued it to cardboard and made a refrigerator magnet out of it.  He said that any of my artwork could be displayed on the fridge using that magnet.   Only a few years ago my friend Joe began calling me by that name. The first time he and I had been introduced and he  said to me,  "You look like a Gidget and so that's what I'm going to call you."  I can't tell you what a Gidget is supposed to look like, but I can tell you the name has a sort of fondness for me seeing as how it brings me back to my childhood.  In fact, I often think about adopting another fur-child and naming her Gidget, but one fur-child is enough for me to handle right now.  

The other half of my blog title, "two cents," accurately depicts the Irish in me. I was raised to "tell it like it is,"  abide by the rule that honesty is the best policy, and to also be conscious that even the truth can hurt.  So there you have it: Gidget's Two Cents.