Today is “Get A Different Name” Day, and before you ask, no, I’m not making that up. My name is Donna, there are no real nicknames for Donna, no good way to shorten it. It’s just boring old Donna. My middle name is Voldemort. That’s a lie, but my middle name pre-marriage shall never be spoken aloud; it was very southern, very horrible, and still gives me hives when I hear it, so that wasn’t a nickname option. Hold your laughter because what I came up with, in my youth, for a nickname is even more ridiculous than my given middle name. Okay, here goes. As a kid, I liked pickles a lot. I still like pickles, they are delicious. I thought “Pickles” would make for a fun and awesome nickname, so I boldly listed it on my first grade “getting to know you essay” for the first day of school. That damn piece of paper hung on the door to my classroom for the first full month of school. It ended up being the longest first month of school in my entire elementary career. Yes, Pickles was the different name I selected for myself, and I can not believe I just shared that nugget of information with you, dear reader. Don’t judge me, I’m sure you’ve wandered into the brine. Sorry, that was terrible, I’ll show myself out. Let’s never speak of this again.
Since I was unable to find a hero or heroine that goes by the name Pickles, I decided to throw it back to books that have main characters using aliases. I’m far brighter now than I was in first grade. One is a throwback to on my to be read list, and the other goes back to my favorite comfort read. Sadly, neither of these books have a single mention of pickles, the pity.