fear for the future

Aaron and I were talking about pet names last night. Earlier in our relationship, he had expressed the opinion that he prefers giving human names to animals over names like "fluffy" or "spot" or "carmel". His own dog is named Teddy, so it makes sense. But since we've been talking about one day getting a beagle, we had the great idea to name it Poppyseed. As in, Poppyseed Beagle. I cannot stop laughing. I really wanted Everything or Plain, but those don't sound as good when you call them across the yard.

The discussion went on from there - I asked about naming pets after abstract concepts, like Entropy or Destiny. Aaron said, no, we should name them something really COOL like....the four horsemen of the apocalypse! But we don't want to have four dogs, so...we thought of some alternatives.

• Fish. Even though I hate fish, it would be pretty sweet to have fish named Death, Pestilence, War, and Famine.
• Our future children. This spawned even funnier visions...
• All four kids are named after the four horsemen. Can you see it in their third grade classroom? The teacher says, Fa-meen-ay? "No, Ms. R, it's Famine, like when everybody starves."
• Only three kids are named after horsemen: These are my children, War, Pestilence, Death, and Joe.
• Three kids are named after horsemen, but the fourth is another funny joke "sign of the end times", such as: War, Death, Famine, and Activist Judges. I actually really like the name Activist Judges - I think it's the plurality of Judges, and Aaron likes the "v" sound in Activist. But, that would quickly become a dated joke, and people might think we don't like activist judges, which we do.

We were talking about this before bed and it was a long time before we could stop laughing and fall asleep. Aaron has a biblical name, so why not continue that tradition? Think of all the fun you could have in grocery stores, parks, parent teacher conferences - Death, come here right this minute! War, get off the slide and let the other children play, too. Ms. R, I feel Pestilence isn't being challenged enough and that's why she's out of control.

And imagine the great holiday cards:

• Peace and Happy Holidays from Aaron, Allison, War, Famine, Activist Judges, Pestilence, and Poppyseed Beagle.