TurkeyToad, what the hell is that? Is it a hopping turkey or a toad with feathers that hates Thanksgiving? To me it is the nickname given to me by my father as a kid.
My given name is two syllables, as is my brother's name. To make things easier our names were shortened to single syllables. Such as Robert being shortened to Bob or Rob. In our case when our names were shortened they rhymed such as Bob and Rob. So my mother, whenever she was yelling at us, or trying to get our attention she would always yell, "Rob-Bob", or "Bob-Rob." Sometimes there was even a "Ba-Rob" or a "Ra-Bob." Mom still does this today and we have noticed that she will even include my dad's name in the list making it Joe-Rob-Bob.
We make fun of mom for this to this day especially since she is still doing it and modifying the name progression. Maybe she is just like a quarterback going through the passing progressions until she finds the open son...
Dad did not have the same problem with names. He made up his own nicknames for us. They changed and evolved over the years. First, before we get into the nickname, a little store from childhood.
My uncle (dad's brother) lived less than a mile from my grandparents' house and about 2.5 miles from my house growing up. One summer he bought a baby turkey. It was kind of cute, for a bird, and it lived at my uncle's house. It was named Tom... It was a farm and there was plenty of room for the bird to do whatever it is that birds do when people are not watching. I think it used to chase the pigs through the barn when nobody was watching. At least that is the story I told and I'm sticking to it because it wasn't me that was chasing the pigs.
The turkey grew up as most animals do. It was a domesticated turkey and got fairly large. Turkeys are also mean and territorial especially if you are a small kid with a penchant for rock throwing.
My brother is two + years younger than me. I think I was 8 or 9, making him 6 or 7 years old. We were throwing rocks at the turkey trying to get it to chase us. We would run in opposite directions and it would normally get confused and stop chasing us. Once however it did not stop chasing us, or rather chasing my brother. Tom caught up to him and flopped him with his wing repeatedly. Eventually it gave up the fight and wandered off.
I guess dad was watching us taunt the bird and apparently he warned us to stop it (we couldn't really hurt the bird) or the bird would take after us. It is funny how sometimes parents are right. For some reason, Dad started calling me Turkey after that. Maybe it was because I was making fun of my brother who was traumatized. I thought it was funny as only an older brother can. It might have been my Dad's way of taking some of the focus off my brother. Needless to say, I did not enjoy being called a turkey but dad didn't give it up.
I'm not sure where the "toad" portion came in. Maybe he is a big fan of alliteration. Maybe he thought a part turkey, part toad animal would be one funny looking animal. I'm not sure. Maybe I liked to hop as a kid. I'm not sure about that but anything is possible.
Eventually I accepted the fact that I was going to be TurkeyToad. Mom became MommaToad. Dad simply became Toad.
After college, I moved out and got married to the Chief. A few years later the Xbox360 came out and Red Hat Jef coerced me into getting one so we could waste more time playing video games over the internet. I signed up for the Xbox Live and had to pick a screen name. TurkeyToad fit the bill perfectly.
RHJ and I would play Halo 2 online with other people and sometimes I would get comments about my screen name. I had someone leave a recorded message in messaging section of Halo. It was something like this: "I love turkeys and I love toads, so I love you!" I thought he was very funny, of course I am assuming it was a guy... or a kid. It could have been a 9 year old boy that had just kicked my ass during the last match or it could have been some 9 year old girl that just kicked my ass during the last match.
Anyway... we are one big hopping family.
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