"Miriam"

Throughout life, I have picked up many different nick-names. Some better than others. I've been known by such names as: Red (because my favorite color is red), Harrison (I have no idea why people called me that), Nash Potatoes (I will kill anyone who calls me that. I'm looking at you +Bailey Mills ), Nashie-poo (again, no idea), Retardud Cheez (classic case of mistaken identity), Mr. Awesome (I seriously got some people to call me that), and the Sex Hammer! (Okay, I admit. No one has ever called me that last one. But I'm working on it!) But one nick-name I cherished above all others. Only one person could call me that name and it was as embarrassing as hell, but it was my favorite. The name was Miriam and Kayla was the only person who could call me that.

     It wasn't too long after the lunch where I reunited with Kayla. All of  us (the kids at the youth rally) gathered in a large building in the center of Sunnydale Adventist Academy. There were roughly 100 of us all together, so the staff divided us all up into 10 groups of 10 (give or take a couple). Our groups were decided by the color that was on our name tags. If you name tag was dark blue like mine, you were in the Dark Blue Group. The Youth Leader stood up in front of everyone and began calling out the names of the group leaders. Once they were picked, we were to join up as a group and set out on some afternoon group activities.

     I was walking over to join my group when I saw someone else walking up as well. It was Kayla. She was also in the Dark Blue Group. My 14-year-old mind, that delusionally believed in fate, went nuts. There was no way it was an accident that we ended up in the same group just minutes after "accidentally" meeting her in the lunch line. I was convinced. We were meant to be together forever. As stupid as that sounds, at fourteen I actually believed it.

     It was here that I gained the aforementioned nick-name. One of our many group activities was a group exercise dubbed "Picture Perfect". In this exercise, we were given a Biblical scene and as a group we had to arrange ourselves in such a way that we resembled that scene. Then they would take our picture. Our scene happened to be "Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea". As soon as she heard what the scene was, Kayla jumped up and yelled, "I call Moses! I want to be Moses."

      So I turned to her and said, "Well, if you're Moses, then I call his sister!"

     She turned and looked at me, then she said, "Okay, Miriam." And that's the name she called me ever since.

     I hated that nick-name, but I loved it when she called me that. I would never let anyone else call me Miriam, but she could all she wanted. It was both my favorite and least favorite nick-name of all time. But I'll still kick your ass if you call me Nash Potatoes.