Biz-Radicus, Party of Five, Your Table Is Now Ready

It's rather bizarre but growing up I never had a nickname and it drove me crazy. All my friends had cool names that everyone called them but I was always Karen. Karen Ann. Boring arse Karen Ann. It drove me nuts.

Then I married the original Man-Of-Many-Names and nicknames came flying at me like like nobody's business, primarily from Brad's family, but some of them have stuck and now several people use them to get my attention. Here are some of my favorites:

PRP: I'll start with the Puerto Rican Princess for obvious reasons and because it's story is definitely the most sinister. It all started back several years ago when we were sitting around with Brad's grandmother who, for some reason, suddenly started thinking that I was from Puerto Rico. (People often think that I am from some exoctic locale due to my dark eyes and skin, but I promise you I am 100% grade A American.) Instead of politely correcting her like most kind people, I started going along with her theory and told her story after story of my homeland (95% of which was completely made up because it turns out I don't know all that much about the old Rico.) Luckily, or rather somewhat shamefully, Brad's family all went along with me on our one-way expressway to hell as we continued to play with the old and feeble. After that initial trip it didn't come up again for along time. A. Long. Long. Time. Until Hurricane Katrina when Nanny worriedly asked me if my family was all okay and if any of them were affected by the horrendous events that took place. Horribly, I said that everyone was fine. (I know. I can feel you recoiling away from your monitors as you read this.) To this day, Nanny still thinks that I am from THE RICO as we now call it and Brad's family backs me up all the way. The only question I have is what's the highest SPF hell has to offer? I don't want to burn.


KARN: Karn was first developed by Spencer who, when he began talking, pronounced simple words with an extra emphasis and we could not figure out why. He would point and say "bar-en!" (Barn) or yell "Mommy, honk the hor-en." (Horn) It took us awhile to put it together until someone pointed out that he was used to hearing people say my name, Karen, and he added that pronunciation to similar words. (I'm telling you, the kid's a genius.) My bro-in-law is the only one who still gets away with calling me Karn because it drives me nuts, but I try to think of it as a term of endearment.

KJO: This is obviously a JLo reference and it came into play for two reasons: one, I do pack a powerful badonkadonk and two, I went through a short-lived phase of wearing my my hair in curls with gigantomondic silver hoop earrings. (Maybe it was because both JLo and I are from Puerto Rico.) Anyway, I learned my lesson.


Kiz-Jo: Kiz-Jo is a genetically alterred form of KJo and was created by my husband, who refers to himself as B-Rad. (Actually, I think most of his students call him that as well.) Brad had tired of KJo and Karn and needed something new so Kiz-Jo it is. And I know how awful the thought is of having someone call themself B-Rad but if there were ever a man to pull it off, it's my husband. Trust me, it suits him completely in a totally non-horrifying way.

Let's see, what else? Oh, to answer Marilyn, Hannah came up with the name Squish and everyone immediately started calling her that. I don't know why exactly, because she wasn't even Squishy as a baby, all bone skinny and spider-like (just like her Mama) but Squish stuck and I hear people call her by that more often than I hear her actual name, which is a pity because her name is beautiful: Sienna Grace. Not at all Squishy. But Squish she is, even to me.

The kids have apparently learned the art of renaming from their father because although Sienna has been Squish from the beginning, they recently began calling her Doot-do, which I had to IMMEDIATELY put the kibosh on. Isn't that horrible? Makes my ears bleed just a little.

Hannah is generally known as Bo-Bo, because of the dwindling down of Hannah, Hannah Banana (literally every person I've met has called her Hannah Banana at some point in her short life which is so, so weird to me) to the Bo-Nans and then Bo-Bo.

Spence, sadly to say, is either Spencer or (watch out now!) Spence. How sad is that? Nothing has ever really stuck with him. Maybe it's because I don't want to defile all his perfectness with something stupid. I'll keep you posted.

And finally Brad, who is B-Rad, Biz-rad, Biz-radicus, or BJ just when it's really fun for me. And there you have it. The Johnsons, name by name.