The Dubbing of What's-her-name

A few weeks back I was hanging out at Li'l Random McEvil's house on a Saturday afternoon when I got a text message from an unfamiliar number: "You've gotta be here to enjoy this." Having gotten random text messages by accident in the past, I quickly replied "Who is this?" The response of "It's us!" made me wonder if the messages were coming from some of the girls from the Singles since I knew that they were planning on hanging out that day; Li'l Random opined that it was probably Doc Jetson, which made sense, since I knew she had gotten a new cell phone number which I hadn't gotten programmed into my phone yet. Fairly confident that it was jut the girls messing with me, I engaged in the following text conversation*.

Me: Sorry, I don't know anybody named 'us'.
Them: Our feelings are hurt . . . we can't believe you don't know us.
Me: I know, I'm a horrible person not to know who you are, what with all the specific information you've given me.
Them: Oh my goodness. Where is the love? Here's the first clue: there are four.
Me: Is it the Beatles? The Monkees?
Them: No moptops here. Clue two: hazel x2/brown x2.
Me: Thanks heavens for my photographic memory for eye colors, it's all clear now. . .
Them: Clue three: we love to laugh.
Me: The cast of Mary Poppins?
Them: Close. Clue four: there are now five.
Me: Wait you're multiplying now? Are you bunnies? Bunnies, bunnies, you must be bunnies!**
Them: No hippity hoppity peter cotton tails here. Clue five: see photo that is coming next.

This was followed by the following picture:

I responded with a comment asking how they were able to sneak into Li'l Random's office and take a picture without him knowing? Their reply was "Smoochies from your lovers," which was a callback to a running gag about how the use of the word "lovers" makes Li'l Random blush. Before I could reply, I got another message: "Care to guess? Name those girls . . ."

I was pretty confident I knew who the five culprits were, and I decided to give my answer in the form of nicknames; the only problem was that one of them was nicknameless. So, my guess was "Doc, Bashful, Sneezey, Trouble, and What's-her-name."

They replied, "Close - what's her name needs a moniker. We're all offended for her."

By this point, all you blog monkeys should know that coming up with nicknames isn't exactly my forte; luckily, I had other resources to pull from. "Hey, Randomino," I said, "I need a nickname for What's-her-name."

"What sort of nickname?"

"Any sort, doesn't matter."

"Okay . . . mei-mei."

"How do you want me to spell that?"

"I don't know, you're the English major!"

So, I sent them a text saying that Li'l Random had dubbed What's-her-name "May-may." Their response: "Um huh?"

I replied that it was a nickname courtesy of everyone's favorite random generator, and so they shouldn't expect it to make sense. In response, they said "We have high expectations. He's been out of our lives for so long we forgot," a not so veiled crack at the fact that, due to various trips and other engagement, I was practically the only person in our group who had had any contact with Mr. McEvil for about two months. Unfortunately, I had already left his place and headed over to Cap'n Shack-Fu's for dinner, and so was unable to relay that particular insult until later, but I did message them back to say that if he had been there, I'm sure he would have said "Oh, snap!"

Although she initially rejected the nickname of May-may, eventually she acquiesced, with the stipulation that we use the Chinese spelling of Mei-mei. And thus, a nickname was born; as usual, I had next to nothing to do with it.


*For the record, their side of the conversation is taken verbatim from my saved messages, while mine is mostly reconstructed from memory due to the small "Sent mail" folder on my phone
**Sadly, Squiggly was not one of the gathered group, because I think she's the only one who would have gotten my "Once More With Feeling" ref there.