Someday was Friday

You know how you do things and you think to yourself "someday that is going to come back and bite me in the ass?" Well, someday was last Friday.

I have the unfortunate (but, I must say, usually spot on) habit of having nicknames for people. Mostly these names stay in my head. Not that they're mean, although it would hurt ickythickears feelings if he heard me call him that. And whilst I don't care about ITE himself, I am also not intentionally unkind to people. Even him. Mostly they're nice names, and some people know their names. Does Ky know I think of her as Superman's girlfriend? Probably not, but it is a compliment so that's ok.

I usually have nicknames to help me remember people's actual names. Sometimes that doesn't help: Ivan and Combover have the same first name, so while I remember what to call them I can't put their last names on a score sheet because I don't remember which is which. Some names stay VERY PRIVATE. His Holy Hotness, for instance, has never been identified. Fortunately he hardly ever appears so I don't often have a chance to mess up. And I do know his real name now too, so it's all good.

At work there is a woman - whom I've never met - that works in the same building but not in the same department. Not a clue who she is, but she smokes a number of cigarettes every day, and she always walks out the front door, over to the side of the building and smokes under the lovely tree outside my window. One of my windows, actually; my office is mainly glass. Anyway, she is crazy - I've seen her out there in -28 weather wearing an Indian cotton blourse and skirt, no coat - but to me she is simply Smoking lady.

On Friday I openend the door to the lobby just as she was coming in which startled her enough to make her gasp. To which I said "sorry smoking lady".

Well. There is nothing one can do at that point but nod and move on. No explanation is going to make that better. If I had to screw up on the whole nick name thing, though (and Lord knows I had to, it was a statistical inevitability) I'm glad it was Smoking Lady and not His Holy Hotness. Who would be perfect for Mayb, 'ceptin for the fact he's married. Dang.