I can't believe I am sharing this.

Over the course of the years I have had quite a few nicknames.

Barney.

Serial Killer Chikin'.

Big Daddy.

But Howard over at The Web Pen, posted about a cute story about his childhood nickname.

Reading it totally took me back to what I was known as a kid.

Thanks to my initials being B and J, yep, you guessed it, I was called 'BJ'.

As far as I can remember, at least until I got older, I was only referred to as BJ.

To make matters worse, there was a popular TV show at that time called 'BJ and The Bear'.

For you youngin's, this show was about a truck driver and his pet chimp, who would travel the country and get in to trouble.

Due to it's popularity, whenever I was introduced to someone as a kid, people would indoubtedly ask me, 'where's The Bear?'

Even at a ripe age of four, I found that really annoying, and it got old quick.

I hated being a kid.

Anywho, so throughout my grammar school years, I trudged on with my annoying moniker.

Well, that or the variant, 'Beej'.

Finally when I changed schools my sixth grade year, I made a stand and declared to the family that I would no longer answer to that name, and would go by my real, whole, first name.

Thank god I changed it when I did, because adolescence proved to show me what the alternative definition of what a BJ was/is.

Phew!

Imagine the teasing I would have got then!

Ironically, since I rarely visit my family, they still fall in to the habit of using my old 'handle'.

Sadly, I don't think my aunt can refer to me by any other name.