The Name Game

I always thought people with unusual nicknames were lucky because they always had an interesting story to tell. My friends Picklez, Scruff, Bong, and Bird, among others, were constantly relaying the often hilarious tales of how their nicknames came to be. Well, one drunken night in Memphis a couple years ago, my unusual nickname was born.

The company I was working for had a sales training session in Memphis, and on our last night, we decided to celebrate. After many drinks in several bars, the crowd whittled down to just Harry and I. We walked up and down Beale Street searching for a seemingly happening bar to end the night in. We stumbled across a dueling piano bar and decided to check it out.

Inside, we settled ourselves at the bar and watched the two men at facing pianos furiously play song after song, interjecting a little comedic banter in between verses. The beer was flowing and we were having a blast singing along to pop culture's best songs. The pianists started a familiar Elton John song and Harry began singing perverted alternate lyrics. "Obscene baby, skanky lady. I put my semen in her hand..." Being one to make up obscene lyrics myself, the wheels began turning. Harry kept singing. "Softly...slowly..." At that moment, in my drunken stupor, I busted out my own lyrics at the top of my lungs. "FUCK ME HARDER TINY DANCER!" Harry's eyes grew large and I swore the music stopped for a second while everyone in earshot turned to stare. My face grew hot and red as Harry burst into laughter. We laughed through the remainder of the song and continued throughout the rest of the night. Not long after our trip, Harry would periodically call or email and address me as TD. I started addressing his UPS packages with TD as the sender.

And so my nickname Tiny Dancer was born.