A Gas By Any Other Name

My wife has changed her nickname for me.  She used to call me "Slush."

This originated early in our marriage one time when I had strep throat.  Apparently I was moaning in my sleep, delirious with fever, and she reached over, put her hand on my forehead, and asked, "Are you okay, Honey?"

I woke up slightly and blurted assertively, "Don't call me Honey...  call me Slush."

I could have said, "Call me Ishmael."  Or, "Call me in the morning."  Or, "They call me Mr. Tibbs."   But no, up from the depths of mental quicksand, I burped, "Call me Slush."  Don't ask me why.

And for years and years, that's exactly what she did.  And sometimes she would embellish the word with an affectionate Southern drawl, as in:  "Now don't leave your clipped toenails on the coffee table, Sluuuuuuush."  She would often cushion such wicked commandments with this term of endearment.

But no longer.

Now she calls me "Beaner."  I assumed, as anyone would, that this was a nasty reference to the frequency with which I experience a profusion of intestinal gas.  This was cruel, I thought.  I probably enjoy asparagus and frijoles as much as the next guy, and I don't think I am a standout in the area of sound effects.  So, "Beaner" seemed a bit harsh and inappropriate.

There was a vaudeville performer in the 1890s, I read about years ago, whose talent was this:  he could fart at will.  Out on the stage he would go, and with certain "maneuvering", he could produce musical tones of varying pitches and volume.  I am not proud that I have made this factoid available in my memory reserves in case I have needed it.  But the point is this:  If ever an individual earned the nickname, it would have been that brilliant vaudevillian:  "And now ladies and gentlemen, presenting for your auditory and olfactory amazement,  Beaner the Magnificent!"

But as it turns out, I misunderstood my wife.  Recently while she was on the phone, I was talking to Dog, as I often do, in high-pitched Spanish.  Dog was groggy, had just left her nap on the couch, and both of her ears were inadvertently turned inside out.  You can often see Dog with one of her ears all cockeyed this way, but two for the price of one, au naturale, was kind of a treat.   As such, I was trying to tell Dog, in high-pitched Spanish, that she looked like an Italian prostitute.  I'm sorry, but such a one-sided conversation in our house is not that unusual.  Dog is used to it.  She just yawns, shakes her head to right her ears, and wants to be let outside.  She is either trying to ignore me, or maybe she hasn't learned Spanish.

Apparently, the person on the other end of the line asked my wife what all the noise was about, because I heard my wife say, "Oh that?  That's just Beaner."

"That's just Beaner"?  When she hung up, I asked her if Dog had been having gas.  No, she explained, "Beaner" had nothing to do with beans, that I was the Beaner.  It was an expansion of B.N. and that at those times when I was manic, such as then, it helped her focus on tasks by referring to me as B. N., or BeaNer, short for...   "Background Noise".  My betrothed, for richer or poorer, believes I resemble background noise.

In elementary school I was called "Shrimp" because I was so small for my age.  In junior high, they called my "Bonnie", short for Bohnhorst.  In college, I became known first as "Turk" because I lived in Turkey, and then it expanded to "The Lustful Turk", the name, apparently, of an old silent film.  But mainly, The Lustful Turk fit the persona I had created at parties and impromptu jam sessions, when I would down about 10 beers, grab the microphone in front of my rockin', electric guitar totin' friends, and famously wail and strut and kick out the vocal jams to rock "songs" never before heard and never heard since.  The unbridled energy and sheer (drunken) showmanship of The Lustful Turk would have shamed Mick Jagger and his meek brethren by comparison.

To these former names, I could identify.  I didn't like Shrimp, but I was small.  Bonnie was said with affection, the way a puppy gets a pat on the head.  The Lustful Turk made a name for himself on the Michigan State University circuit of alcohol abuse mixed on weekends with roaring rock.  Slush, I brought on myself.

But, Background Noise?  Like elevator music heading up to the fifth floor?  Like frogs in concert on a spring night in a meadow pond?  My incessant chucklehead chortling had become synonomous with the indistinguishable croaks of frogs?  What was that familiar yet strangely annoying sound?  Oh that?  That's just Beaner.

I feel a case of strep throat coming on. It will be the middle of the night. I will become delirious as my faux fever soars.  I will moan.  And my wife will touch my forehead and whisper, "Are you okay, Beaner?"

To which I will counter, "Don't call me Beaner.  Just call me Honey."




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