I was walking down the street last Thursday when I overheard a couple of women talking about some mutual acquaintance that was expecting a child and was considering what to name her. One woman was heard to remark, “He was going to go the Tiffany or Amber route until I said to him, ‘Hey wait a second – what if she grows up to be a Supreme Court Justice or something like that? You can’t have a Supreme Court Justice named Tiffany!’” The other woman nodded in agreement as they turned the corner and started walking away from me. I stopped walking and tilted my head like a border collie at a whistling competition. As their fat, middle-aged asses waddled off into the distance, I began to shake my head and try to make sense of what I had just heard.

I wanted to chase this woman down and ask her to tell me every detail of her life so that I might find out how a person could grow to be so shallow and stupid and still possess the knowledge that there is such an organization as the Supreme Court. I wanted to shake her whilst informing her that in its 215+ years of existence, the President of the United States of America has appointed people to the Supreme Court with the following names:

Salmon Portland Chase – I mean, seriously, how sincerely are you going to take an opinion from a guy named Salmon Portland?

Roger Brooke Taney – I have always put ‘Brooke’ in the same category as ‘Tiffany”…and this is a man.

Bushrod Washington - That’s right lady – the man’s name was Bushrod. I think little Amber will be okay.

And don’t forget Justices: Rufus Wheeler Peckham, Felix Frankfurter and Lucius Quintus C. Lamar.

Is Tiffany going to be okay? And really, what’s in a name? This guy grew up to be an Associate Professor in the Program in Cognition and Neuroscience at the University of Texas at Dallas. I really don’t think that naming your kid Amber is going to shackle her to a lifetime of snapping chewing gum and twirling her hair down at the mall. Honestly, that one sentence has caused me a great deal of distress. Hopefully I will run into this woman again so that I might ask her to explain her reasoning. And then head-butt her.

You might say, “Hey metten, how ’come you’re so worried about somebody else’s conversation? Mind your own business and you won’t have to worry about this kind of thing.” You would be wrong. I am the victim here. I was simply trying to walk from point A to point B. I had every right to be walking on the public sidewalk that I helped to pay for. This rude and inconsiderate woman chose to speak in a voice loud enough to be heard by innocent passers-by. Further, she chose to fashion her remarks to fit within the so-stupid-it-makes-your-head-hurt genre. This is her fault. Lewis Black had a theory about this sort of thing (“If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college”). Apparently, hearing small portions of a conversation and then attempting to figure out just what the hell the speaker was talking about is the sole reason for brain embolisms. You just sit there, quietly repeating to yourself, “Supreme Court Justice Tiffany, Supreme Court Justice Tiffany, Supreme Court Justice Tiffany, Supreme Court Justice Tiffany” until your brain pops and you fall over dead.

I do think, however, that the American political model is ready for us to pick our leaders solely on how funny their name is. I don’t know about you guys, but I would be a lot more comfortable about the deficit if the budget was being presented to me by Vice President Cindy Vagiknuckles Assmann for President in 2008!!

See you guys next week.

Love,

JRM