all in a name

oh, lordy- it's happened again.

i just had a caller spell her child's name with a "hyphen at the top".***

the next celebrity recording a psa for nbc seriously needs to tackle this issue.

i can see it now:

(scene opens on george clooney, standing in the delivery room, dressed as a doctor. behind him, a nurse (renee zellweger, dressed as nurse betty) hands the new mother her freshly swaddled baby, portrayed by the baby from "who framed roger rabbit".*)

george: "new baby? congratulations!"

"pretty soon, you're going to need to think of a name for your little bundle of joy."

(cut to gene simmons, standing in front of a classroom. the students are busily trying to copy their names, which are written on tags spanning their desks.**)

gene: "yes- congratulations."

"when choosing a name, please think about your child's future."

(in the background, persephone quattlebaum-washington clearly grows frustrated, nearly erasing a hole in her paper, while ann sims, waving around a piece of paper on which she's written her name about a hundred times, says, "mr. simmons? mr. simmons! i'm all done. now what, mr. simmons?")

"please try to come up with something your child can spell easily..."

(persephone quattlebaum-washington erases so hard that her paper tears. both it and the pencil are sent flying as she screams and bursts into tears. gene simmons nonchalantly sticks a hand out and catches the pointy projectile in mid-air, saying, "happens all the time with that one.")

"...and please, parents, if you're going to use punctuation, make sure you know which punctuation you're using."

(child runs up, flashing paper at the camera. his name consists of nothing but random punctuation- a different combination is written on each line of the paper. gene looks at camera and sighs.)



*the fact that i cannot recall the baby's name right now is a clear indication that it's been far too long since i watched the movie.

**in the case of "persephone quattlebaum-washington", the tag takes up the extra space along the top of that of her neighbor, "ann sims".

***in case you're still wondering, yes, i enlightened her on the difference between hyphens and apostrophes.