Monday, April 03, 2006

Taser Nanny


The little guy is having a birthday later this month, and he gave us a list of things he would like for presents.

Included were DVDs of Super Nanny, and Nanny 911, which are his new favorite TV shows (I wrote about it a week or so ago in Parents On The Verge...).

Big problem. They're not available yet.

The ABC Family Channel had a Super Nanny Marathon on Sunday, so we thought we'd tape it for him.

Anyhoo, while we were busy getting our big guy washed, pressed and packed at the last minute to head back to college after Spring Break, we were all treated to some marathon action in the background.

On one episode-- it's a complete blur---either the parents who had 2 sets of twins under the age of three all screaming with need for parental attention, or the dolled-up hoochie-haltered mommy who made a big production of actually baking cookies for the camera while she was oblivious to her 3-year-old running bare-footed down the street with scissors, the Nanny asked, "have you
ever thought about hiring help?"

Whichever parent Nanny was asking got all indignant over the question and said "I wouldn't trust my little angels to strangers!"

My husband, who is absolutely the most laid-back, easy-going and understanding spouse next to Charlie Callahan's wife Martha, said under his breath...

"They don't need to hire help. They need freaking Tasers."

This set off a discussion of a trend we've been noticing since being forced to watch these shows.

It seems that the kid with the most pretentious or porn star-ish name is the one you'd most like to hit on the head with a shovel.

Could there be some sort of correlation between bad behavior and hideous names?

I'm not going to start insulting readers for their choices, just in case someone really does think the name Seagrams is a good name for a girl.

The Misanthropic B*tch does it better (just be warned this is a very salty essay). So does the author of Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing, A Primer of Parental Cruelty.

Little guy went to kindergarten with an adorable girl named Felicia.

At least we thought that was her name.

At a school recital, in the program, it was spelled Phallicia.

I Kid You Not.

It makes you wonder what her parents were thinking.

Were they planning a career for her in the porn industry? Did they want her to be the girl voted "Most Likely To Go Postal and Blow Up Her Prom?"

Who in their right mind would name their daughter after a penis?

Sheesh! Tasers for everyone!

13 comments:

Meg said...

LMAO! Great essay.
I hear a lot of weird names, working in the superhero indusrtry. Singing Rain is the name of a grown white woman in this town. Then there's Gae, Mishay, Mercedes, Haine(said like however you spell that one word for ass that grandmothers like to use. That's one's Chinese). I know a dude name Kristin. A girl named Johnny. Anne, prounounced Annie. Craziness.

Michele said...

phallicia who would do that to a kid...that's child abuse. Glad you enjoyed my simpsons final episode.

Rhonda said...

You are right about the names. Choosing names for my own children after teaching for so many years was so difficult. I had a personality association for every name.

I also went to school with a guy named Richard Hunt. He went by the name Dick.

St Jude said...

When I was in the Bahamas visiting an old pal of mine I met their nanny, and guess what her children were called, Gonorrhoea and Syphillis. I do not jest, when they were born she was given a leaflet from the midwife, she thought the names sounded 'nice'. Would you have that woman for your children's nanny. Mine came pre-starched, just like TV nanny.

Charlie said...

I cannot come close to the names all of you ladies have run into. I have always wondered, however, about the name Bubba. How does a mother know, whilst cradling her one-day-old infant, that he is going to grow up to be a 300 pound, no-necked linebacker? Perhaps there is more to intuition than I suspected.

And that might explain Phallicia. Maybe she grew up to be a prick.

Sven said...

I know plenty of guys named after penises including my friend Dick.

When my wife worked at the juvenile
detention center she had a "resident" named Philander. Since they could say his name with a straight face they just called him Flip.

phlegmfatale said...

Actually, I think Phallacia is closer to the act the girl will be one day performing for $5 a pop.

Nikki said...

HA HA Love this one. I did a posting on my blog along these same lines. It makes you stop and thing how wide spread drug use really is.

Kim said...

ha! I went to school with a boy named Dick Krapps. No kidding. That's just wrong.

Thanks for dropping in at my place today, it's nice to meet you.

Jay said...

I totally think you're balls-on with this theory. I have always claimed that naming your children Bambi or Candy will result in them dancing with a pole for a living.

Kathy Cullen said...

I went to school with a guy named Harry Curley, no lie. His full first name was Harrison.

There are all those stories around about teachers who have had Orangejello and Lemonjello, aka or angelo and le mangelo on their roles. I heard one, which I still don't believe about a kid named shithead, pronounced she they ad.

Thanks for the laugh today :-) Hugs to all the guys, and you!

St Jude said...

Ok Attila remember what I said in my last Gasbag Review about Tunbridge Wells? Well check out this site http://disgusted.tw. But please look but don't touch and don't stomp on the flowers. This person is deadly serious. I don't think he would appreciate our 'sense of humour'.

Special K said...

A friend of mine taught English in China a couple of years ago, and she told me how a lot of her students chose English names for themselves, only for the most part they didn't choose actual proper nouns to do the job, but instead used regular ones. So, among her university-age pupils were people named Purple, Circle, and my personal favourite, Nightmare.

Oddly enough, no Phallicia.