"Steak"

That's one of my names, "Steak", and I like it, I like it so much that I kept it. It's the kind of nickname that you have to love, unless of course "you" are a "vegetarian", which is a lousy nickname. This is another one of those strange things that happen by mistake and then once you find out about it you can either "fix it" or "perpetuate it", guess which one I chose to do.

It started with "shoes", me and the wife were out shopping for shoes and we decided to try "Famous Footwear", we found shoes and bought shoes and then of course the clerk asks us if we want to join the "rewards club", this gets you on their mailing list and they send us coupons and discounts for shoes, the more shoes we buy the more discounts we get. The wife wants to join but she never wants to do the paperwork to join, so of course I get to do it. This is a very familiar theme that we repeat over and over during our marriage.

And then life goes on..........months later a letter shows up from Famous Footwear, it's addressed to "Steak" followed by my last name, the clerk had not only misspelled my first name, somehow she had completely changed it into a delicious main entree. I can type my name with my left hand and I never have to use my right hand, which is where the "K" is, so how it is that she made this mistake I'll never know. There is always the chance that she does this with everyone she signs up for the club.

So "Steak" it was and it was funny, who knew shopping for shoes could be funny, getting mail was funny, going out for steak was funny. The fun never stopped when it came to shoes and steak.

And then a clerk noticed it and offered to change it, this kind of freaked me out, I couldn't let that happen, I felt like Gollum and that "name" was my "ring", my "precious", so I politely declined, she then insisted and asked for my first name, and as stupid as this whole thing is I just could not let it go, I didn't want to lose it forever, if she changed it in the computer then it would go away forever, I wouldn't tell her my first name so I just begged her off and said "no" "leave it", "it's funny when it shows up in the mail", "it's funny when I have a coupon that says "Steak" gets 20% off". She smiled and left it alone, my wife was dying of laughter during all of this, but she knew what it meant to me.

It's a manly nickname "Steak", whats better then that? I use it on all of my store clubs now, 3 different grocery stores, sporting goods store, every chance I get because there can never be enough "Steak". If it ever shows up on my credit report as an alias I'm going to have to celebrate.

My favorite steakhouse is "Ruth's Chris Steakhouse", my wife's favorite is "Steve's Sizzling Steaks" no shit, true story.