Thursday, September 2, 2010

Ice Breaker

Do you remember this scenario from grade school?:

"Now we are going to go around the circle and say our names with a word that describes us, a word that begins with the first letter of our name.  I'll start:  "Hello, I'm 'Clever Catherine'....now you....."

The above was usually smarmily voiced by a fun-loving Sunday School or Youth Group leader who most surely had only the best intentions in mind and was supernaturally able to ignore the eye-rolling and nervous seat-shifting that went on around the group. 

I HATE that game.  Or icebreaker.  Whatever.  I DESPISE it so much that to this day when I take a class, a workshop or attend a reunion, I quake inwardly that the leader will attempt to pull that nonsense. 

WhyeveronEarth? you wonder.

Well, think about it.  How many adjectives come to your mind that are begin with the letter "H"?

Hot
Hysterical
Honest
Hungry*
Heavy*
Homesick
Homely
Helpful
Horrible
Humble

(*maybe if I weren't so daggone hungry I wouldn't be so daggone heavy...but I digress)

Ya think I'm gonna' let any of those rip in a room full of my peers?  "Helpful Heidi"?  I'd be someone's slave for months.  That's just begging for trouble.

And WHAT common adjective, pray tell, is omitted from that list?

That would be the adjective that I selected, by default, Each And Every Time the bottle spun my way attention of the room was shifted my way, that being:

HAPPY.

And the worst of it is, that I can't help it that I smile so much so that when I did say (shudder) "HAPPY HEIDI" that everyone - snarky eighth graders included - would practice their eye rolling skills some more and nod their heads because it just made so much sense; certainly that girl who smiles all the time is always happy. 

Indeed, however, I am NOT always happy.  Not now and certainly not then as a snarky kid, but more often:

Hateful
Horrendous
Humiliated
Hurried
Humourless
Humdrum
Hotheaded
Horrible
Homicidal (I actually WISH I had thought of that in 8th grade...)

What triggered this diatribe?  Like most other things in my life these days, it was the dreaded "Mommy Guilt."  You see, almost 6 years ago I had the clever idea to give my eldest daughter a name that begins with the same initial as does mine.  And as I was ironing one of her dresses I had a terrible shock that she will face that same humiliation that was mine all those years ago. 

I can see it now: 
"now, little girl, its your turn...."
"Hello, I'm hard-core Hannah!"
 
I'm going to have to buy her a thesaurus.

No comments:

Post a Comment

What do you think?