What’s in a name? A lot, apparently, when your last name is Diamond. Almost daily, someone somewhere makes a comment about my name. It used to be mostly women sales clerks saying, “Oooh, Diamond, what a great name.” But lately men join in, too. “Sweet name,” they tell me. “Sounds like a rock star or a radio personality.”
“Pam Diamond, private eye,” I retort. I got that from one of my former editors at the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. Whenever I’d come into the office he’d announce, “Pam Diamond, private eye.” I liked it. I kept it.
My daughter loves, loves, loves the story of how I met – or almost didn’t meet – her father and ultimately acquire the name. I met Patti Diamond in a shoe store in Dallas, Texas and, once she learned I was Jewish (What? Doesn’t everyone talk religion when buying shoes? Isn’t buying shoes a religion in and of itself?) she said, “Oh, you need to meet my brother-in-law.” He turned into a blind date, one of two I scheduled for the weekend. One date was for Friday and one was Saturday. I don’t remember how I got the other blind date for that weekend but I remember whom it was with – Andy Shrimp. Yep, that’s right. A Jewish guy named Shrimp. (For the goyim reading this, shrimp isn’t kosher.)
This is the part my daughter loves. She says, instead of Pam Diamond I could have been Pam Shrimp. She says this laughing hysterically. Pam Shrimp. Imagine.
But it didn’t happen, because I cancelled both dates that weekend after coming down with the flu. I was deathly sick. Not, I don’t feel like going out sick. I was SICK. So I called Shrimp first to give him the bad news. “Sorry to cancel but <sniff> I’m really sick and <cough> I will have to reschedule.” “Yeah, okay, right,” Shrimp said, unsympathetically and sounding as if he’d been blown off many times before and figured this was just another time. Had I the energy I might have tried to convince him otherwise, alas, I did not. I filed it under red flag “pissy phone manners” and instead, I called Jay to break the news, and the date, with him.
“Oh, I’m so sorry you’re not feeling well,” Jay said. “Let me know when you’re feeling better and we’ll get together then.”
Bye bye, Shrimp. Hello Diamond.
Suffice to say I never gave Shrimp another chance. Crikey, he couldn’t get past his own shrimpy little complex long enough to muster up some sympathy for me. Jay, on the other hand, being his sweet, sensitive self, got a date and the girl.
So, the moral is, if you have a name like Shrimp, it would behoove you to be courteous and sympathetic or you just might get dumped before you even have a chance to prove you’re more than your name implies. Whereas, when you have a name like Diamond, well, it speaks volumes.
“Pam Diamond, private eye,” I retort. I got that from one of my former editors at the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. Whenever I’d come into the office he’d announce, “Pam Diamond, private eye.” I liked it. I kept it.
My daughter loves, loves, loves the story of how I met – or almost didn’t meet – her father and ultimately acquire the name. I met Patti Diamond in a shoe store in Dallas, Texas and, once she learned I was Jewish (What? Doesn’t everyone talk religion when buying shoes? Isn’t buying shoes a religion in and of itself?) she said, “Oh, you need to meet my brother-in-law.” He turned into a blind date, one of two I scheduled for the weekend. One date was for Friday and one was Saturday. I don’t remember how I got the other blind date for that weekend but I remember whom it was with – Andy Shrimp. Yep, that’s right. A Jewish guy named Shrimp. (For the goyim reading this, shrimp isn’t kosher.)
This is the part my daughter loves. She says, instead of Pam Diamond I could have been Pam Shrimp. She says this laughing hysterically. Pam Shrimp. Imagine.
But it didn’t happen, because I cancelled both dates that weekend after coming down with the flu. I was deathly sick. Not, I don’t feel like going out sick. I was SICK. So I called Shrimp first to give him the bad news. “Sorry to cancel but <sniff> I’m really sick and <cough> I will have to reschedule.” “Yeah, okay, right,” Shrimp said, unsympathetically and sounding as if he’d been blown off many times before and figured this was just another time. Had I the energy I might have tried to convince him otherwise, alas, I did not. I filed it under red flag “pissy phone manners” and instead, I called Jay to break the news, and the date, with him.
“Oh, I’m so sorry you’re not feeling well,” Jay said. “Let me know when you’re feeling better and we’ll get together then.”
Bye bye, Shrimp. Hello Diamond.
Suffice to say I never gave Shrimp another chance. Crikey, he couldn’t get past his own shrimpy little complex long enough to muster up some sympathy for me. Jay, on the other hand, being his sweet, sensitive self, got a date and the girl.
So, the moral is, if you have a name like Shrimp, it would behoove you to be courteous and sympathetic or you just might get dumped before you even have a chance to prove you’re more than your name implies. Whereas, when you have a name like Diamond, well, it speaks volumes.