What’s in a Name?

When I first named this blog Messy Tessy it was because the moniker was always a term of endearment. I looked up my name on babynamer.com recently, which tells you a name’s possible drawbacks– mine being ‘Messy Tessy’ or ‘Messa Tessa’. Messy Tessy has never been insulting as it’s fairly accurate due to my almost constant creation of clutter and struggles with life. Generally I like anything with Tessy in it, as that is what I want to be called when I become a weird neighborhood old person who the kids visit on summer afternoons. I’ll offer them outdated hard candies and expect them to eat it in front of me for my enjoyment.

What babynamer.com forgot about was “Tessa the Molesta” which my sister coined and tortured me with until I got red in the face and no doubt attacked her, as was my custom. Someone else actually casually slipped in to conversation once freshman year of college and I shut it down. When I searched babynamer.com for ‘Daniel’, teasing nick names included Fanny Danny (probably only really funny in the U.K.), Dan Dan the Garbage man (what??), and Dan-druff (haha!). Subsequently, I came up with ‘Wahhh-niel’ (a la Wahh-mbulance) which I will employ at some point in the future, I’m sure.

After I named the blog, I googled Messy Tessy and I came to a stunning and terrible realization. ‘Messy Tessie’ was a Garbage Pail Kid.

Sick.

As a child, I hated disgusting things. For example, I refused to touch the back of any issue of Ranger Rick when it featured a spider or newt or something disgustingly slimy. Topping my list on disgusting things I hated was Garbage Pail Kids. I was on the tail end of this trend, but I specifically remember feeling ill after viewing this rather tasteless spoof on Cabbage Patch dolls, which I loved dearly at the time. The Garbage Pail kids were always getting violently maimed or mucking around in disgusting substances which ended up being a play on their names that likely made some similarly named kid’s life hell as those nick names were bestowed upon them.

What is even more disturbing are the stills from live action movie made based upon the series, which apparently is one of the worst pieces of cinematic crap ever produced.  Messie Tessie features prominently. The costuming was done by John Carl Buechler who had done the film Troll (and we all know what that leads to). As a so-bad-it’s-good movie junkie, my interest is piqued.

I’m not regretting my blog title, but honestly, ‘Messy Tessy’ is a little bit tarnished now.