Uke
one.
They called her Uke. You play the ukulele in the talent show one time, she often thought to herself, and no one lets you live it down.
It was freshman year, to be exact. A very nervous, and very unknown, brown haired, blue eyed girl stood up on the auditorium’s stage with her ukulele and sang in front of the entire school. She didn’t win—first place went to a dance group known as Hypnotic Robotics—but it caused quite a stir in the school. No one had the guts to go up and preform on their own, nevertheless a freshman. The fact that she used a ukulele was never left out either.
And so began the torturous nickname Ukulele Girl, which, she often grumbled to herself after someone yelled out “Ukulele Girl!” in the halls, wasn’t even all that clever. Neither were the variations; Ukulele, UG (which was usually followed by some smart-ass yelling “LY!”), and, her favorite, Uke. Uke was tolerable. It almost sounded like some pretty foreign name. Almost.
But almost nobody remembered Uke’s real name, Kelsie. Granted, it didn’t have a “ring” like Uke did; in fact, the only thing slightly special about Uke’s real name was the spelling, and even that wasn’t all that different. Still, Uke didn’t see why it was so hard to remember.
But, it could always be worse.
Elvis was a hard name to forget, especially when it’s paired with the last name Presley. Elvis hated his parents for naming him such a stupid thing, especially when they knew he would just get made fun of for it. “The King of Rock and Roll,” kids said. His least favorite was when he had to leave the room for whatever reason.
“Elvis has left the building!”
Elvis supposed that it wasn’t the worst. He could be called Uke, like that poor junior. When they weren’t teasing him, his friends liked to tease Uke. Elvis had never met the girl but he felt sorry for her.
But at least she’d eventually outgrow Uke. He’d never outgrow Elvis. It was a name pinned on him and just changing it would break his mother’s heart. She was attached to his name almost as much as she was attached to the dead singer; she played Elvis records all the time, watched every documentary about him, covered Elvis’ room with posters of his namesake...if you could imagine it, Elvis’ mom probably did it.
Naming her son Elvis was icing on the Elvis fan cake. And his dad...well, his dad wasn’t around enough to really have a say in his son’s name. Elvis remembered asking him about it one time only to get a grunted response that sounded a little like, “Whatever makes your mother happy.”
But, it could always be worse.