In college I was in the drum line (the drum section of the marching band for all you non-band geeks out there). Most everyone in the line had a nickname.
During auditions my freshman year, about 30-40 of us went to a restaurant for lunch. I was sitting right across from the only other 'Jon' in the group. We - being college students and unconcerned with the difficulty it would cause - asked for separate checks.
As the waitress went around the table taking orders, she just wrote everyone's name on their ticket for easy sorting later on. This wasn't a problem for most folks, because they could use their nicknames to ensure a unique ID for every person. Jon was just about the only guy who had been on the line for a while without acquiring a nickname. Mainly the upperclassmen were concerned with assigning monikers for all the newbies for intimidation and light hazing. So John, being an upperclassman himself, wasn’t likely to get a nickname at this point.
When the waitress took his order he and I realized that we might mess up her system.
I asked how he spelled his name.
"J-O-N".
"Great" I said, "I spell mine with an 'h'"!
And that was it. Two guys at the table, one of them the drum captain, said,
in unison, "H? (Dramatic pause, look at each other)
Higgins!"
I think it was the "in unison" part that gave it legs. In any case, that became my name - to the point that for several years after college I would run into people and shock them by telling them my name. Some people who had heard close friends call me 'John' jumped to the conclusion that Higgins must be my last name. A reasonable conclusion, especially given that my actual last name starts with 'H'.
So if you've ever wondered, 'Higgins' has nothing to do with either
Magnum PI or
My Fair Lady.
Anyway, fast forward to my trying to come up with a login that wasn't taken. Higgins usually is taken, so rather than become Higgins123 on one site and HiGGiNs95 on another site, I tried AnotherHiggins. Low and behold, it is just about always available.
I think I'll cross-post this to the
Shaggy Dog Stories thread in
Wordplay.
[tt]
-John[/tt]
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