October 15, 2010

You want to call him WHAT???

Me: Honey, I have the perfect name!

Ralf leans back in his chair and regards me warily across seven years of blissful matrimony.

Me: Gerhardt! Isn’t that a great name?

A pause during which several expressions cross his face, followed by no expression at all.

Ralf: You want to name our son Gerhard?

I nod.

Ralf: Gerhard Schroeder.

Me: Uh huh. I like that name.

Ralf: As in the former German Chancellor?

Me (frowning): Well…. yeah. Why not? He was a good Chancellor.

Ralf: Why don’t you just name him Elvis Presley?

Me (primly): It’s not at all the same thing. People have heard of Elvis.

Ralf: Or Barrack Obama?

Me (rolling my eyes): Way more people have heard of him, too.

Ralf: Yeah, in… He struggles to come up with a suitably obscure location. Texas! THIS IS GERMANY!!!

Me: Hey, what about Tex?

No response besides a slight widening of the nostrils.

Me (regrouping): Anyway, I want to spell it with a ‘t’ at the end, so it’s not even the same name.

Ralf: I refuse to discuss this.

That means he feels strongly about it.

Me (in a wheedling voice): We could call him Gary. Or Hardy. No one would need to know.

Ralf: Go now. Buy a fish. Name it Gerhard or Geronimo or whatever you need to get out of your system.

Me (parting shot): It’s not like I want to name him George Bush!

Sheesh. I guess we’ll have to call him Deke or Garbanzo after all.

13 comments:

  1. LOL! Garbanzo is a great name... Chickpea.. He'll thank you for that. He really will!

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  2. Garbanzo? Now you're getting somewhere!

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  3. Um...I think I'm with Ralf on this one....sorry HPH. :)

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  4. At least you didn't suggest Adolf.

    Just call him Indy...er...Junior. Better yet: Hans Solo!

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  5. I think you should go with Hasselhoff. Germans do love him.

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  6. But what does he think about Garbanzo?

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  7. Hmm...Elvis? Really? Yours is a MUCH better choice!

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  8. Nice as well as very interesting post. Thanks for sharing...

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  9. Your pregnant!!??!! I am SO behind in my blog reading. Congratulations and I vote for Elvis. We are voting, right?

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  10. Very interesting post to go through. It was placed like a drama-script. The naming concept is totally different. It's a lovely name.

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