I Want A New Name

It’s automatic. Women over forty start calling everybody “honey” or “hon.” For me it’s tantamount to using God’s name in vain. When you use it often enough it becomes a cheap teaser word to torture the recipient. You see, my wife calls me “honey” (sometimes “hon”). One day shortly after my wife’s fortieth, we drove through McDonald’s for a snack and the creature in the take out window with multiple piercing and tattoos handed her the food and she said, “Thanks, hon.” My mind started racing and something inside me screamed, “No that’s my name! You can’t have my name!” Then it seemed she started calling everyone “honey”. When she calls me “honey” now it’s not special anymore. It was our special pet name we called each other. Not a word to throw at common strangers.

I’ll go to a restaurant and a raspy throated waitress with a bass voice (probably from chain smoking) says, “What do you want HONEY?” Privately, I’m thinking she would make a great poster girl for the anti-smoking TV ads and I feel like I’ve been assaulted verbally by someone who wants to fantasize that she’s my honey. If she’s young and pretty, on the other hand, this middle aged bald man gets a tremendous boost to his ego.

And here is the danger in all this. If my wife is calling McDonald’s employees and any other strangers she chances to meet, “Hon,” in her forties, where will this progress to? Will she call them “sugarplum” in her fifties and “wild thing” in her sixties? By the time she is eighty will she throw caution to the wind and jump right through the drive-through window?

Personally, I believe I’ve suffered irreversible permanent psychological harm from all this. With my special name being marginalized to the title used for questionable strangers, my self worth and identity have been badly bruised. Now, when my wife calls me honey, she might as well say, “You’re a nobody, you’re nothing to me, you’re like all the rest.”

I want a new name and I want it now. This time I get to choose it. It will be my name and mine alone, I won’t share it. I’m toying with several names, “‘Your Magnificence’, ‘Exalted One’, or ‘Master and Ruler Of The Universe.’” If there is any hope for my marriage, my wife must cease and desist immediately the habit of calling me “honey” or “hon” while I choose my new name. If you have any name suggestions, it would be appreciated.