Category Archives: pet names

“Why don’t we have pet names for each other?” Zoey asked.

The blathering idiot’s on again, off again girl friend appeared very concerned with the answer to this question. Unfortunately, he did not have one: answer or pet name. He did know that Valentine’s Day was coming, and being short of cash, he proposed this idea: “What if we give each other pet names for Valentine’s Day?”

Zoey nodded, then added, “But I think we should make it a little more sporting. We each come up with a pet name for the other person and whoever comes up with the best one, gets to pick his or her own pet name, which the other one has to use in public.”

“No matter what?” he asked.

“No matter what.”

The blathering idiot felt acid pour into his stomach and forgot to ask who would be the judge.

It was 48 hours to Valentine’s Day and the blathering idiot had no idea how to begin. Where did people get “pet names” anyway? Didn’t they just make them up?

The blathering idiot tried making up a pet name. He filled up pages and pages of names he scratched down and then scratched out. But the ones he liked best: indigo eyes and violet lips would have forced him to get a new girl friend and he didn’t think that’s what Valentine’s Day was about.

He pulled a dictionary off the library reference shelf, and frantically rifled through it, scanning and flipping pages as fast as he could. It was less than a day to V-Day and he felt the acid in his stomach was about to eat through his brain. Somehow, cornucopia’s delight, while different, was a little hard to say regularly.

Xenia, Zoey’s daughter, was at the library, and seeing the blathering idiot in such a lather, she took pity on him. She walked up to him and told she would give him the same list she had given her mother, a list she had printed off the Internet.

The list was in three columns, the first column with the names; the second column saying if was a female “term of endearment,” a male one, or both; the third column was for comment and usually had the word “caution” or words “explicitly suggestive” beside the terms that could be a problem. There were seven pages of these terms. The blathering idiot had no idea there were so many pet names (terms of endearment).

He immediately eliminated the terms cuddly wuddly, cutesy chick, cutesy pie, cutie pie (Did there really have to be two such ugly terms so closely related?), and cutie patootie. Anything that sounded like it might even remotely be referring to a body part would get him trouble.

He also eliminated sugar plum, sugar pie (What is it with pie?) sugar lips, sugar britches, sugar bun, and sugar booger because they all mentioned sugar, and Zoey had been complaining lately of being fat. Plus, to the blathering idiot, there was no way to make booger sound good.

Anything with baby in the phrase was also eliminated because she sometimes referred to Xenia as “her little baby,” which irritated Xenia no end. Of course, those terms with baby in them were the first ones Xenia suggested.

The blathering idiot also eliminated terms with flowers in them, especially buttercup, since it had both butter and was a flower. Zoey already had Xenia, and that was the only flower name she wanted in her life, unless they came in a bouquet.

The night before he was to meet with Zoey to decide who had the better “pet name,” the blathering idiot couldn’t sleep. He walked around his house saying all sorts of names out loud.

“Cherub?”

No. He wasn’t sure what that was, which probably meant he’d be in for it even before he got in to it.

“Bunny?”

No.

“Honey bunny?”

Definitely not.

“Love muffin?”

While he would love a muffin right about now, it being one of his favorite foods, it was still a food, and she knew muffins were one of his favorite foods, so he knew she’d be wondering if he was seeing her or a pumpkin chocolate chip muffin every time he said it. And truth be told, it was sometimes easier to picture himself with a muffin than with her.

Several hours later, in the wee hours of the morning, his voice hoarse and his thoughts a watercolor blur, he collapsed into a chair, the terms of endearment on the desk table beside him.

The next evening, dressed in a shirt, tie, and dress pants, he met Zoey at the appointed time in the appointed restaurant.

He wasn’t quite sure who should speak first, and he guessed neither did she.

Finally, she said, “Who should go first?”

The blathering idiot quickly took a sip of water, but then decided to get it over with. He first started off explaining everything he had gone through to get to his conclusion, but long before he was near his conclusion, Zoey was drumming her fingers on the table.

Finally, she said, “What did you decide?”

The blathering idiot quickly took another sip of water.

Unable to think of anything – he’d even left the list at home – he blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “Cornucopia’s delight.”

Except it didn’t come out quite that way. Instead it came out “Corn and peas deli.”

Stunned for a moment, Zoey then laughed and laughed and laughed, but in short order told him that if he didn’t take their relationship any more seriously than that, she never wanted to see him again.

Just then a tray of muffins came by the table, and the blathering idiot decided he’d think about those for a while.