Can't I be Isis instead?

I have no idea how we got on the subject at work, since we're all working nonstop at my office from the time we arrive until we punch the old timeclock, but my co-worker and I were discussing our favorite superheroes from childhood. She asked me if I remember Shazam.

Do I remember Shazam? Have you said my name outloud lately?

You know where I'm going with this. In elementary school, when everyone's favorite sport was finding a way to make fun of someone else's name, Shazam and I were tight.

"Hey Shazam!"

"That's not my name!"

"Whatever you say, Shazam!"

"That's NOT my NAME!!!"

I had that same effective response when some kid named Jeff used to run down the hall, pretending to play a banjo and singing "Oh Susannah" as some sort of taunt. I'm not entirely sure why it was an insult, but it seemed to work.

"Oh Susannah!"

"My name is SUZANNE, not SuzannUH!"

"Oh, don't you cry for me!"

"Don't worry - I won't!"

Man, I was good.

Looking back on it, Daniel Hrna should have been an easy target for name-teasing all along, but he didn't actually become one until he did, in fact, suffer a hernia! In 5th grade! But none of us knew what a hernia was. So, we chanted "Daniel Hrna had a hernia!" but there wasn't much mirth in it, and Daniel didn't have much reaction.

As I got older and found out what a hernia was, I realized he was probably too dazed by the whole painful experience to respond. No, he didn't actually have the hernia right in front of us at school. He was absent for a while, and when he came back, he told us why he'd been out. He seemed fine to me, and I guess he probably was by then, but I should think that "a protrusion of an organ or tissue through an abnormal opening in the body" (definition via the Hernia Resource Center) would leave anyone without the will to engage when teased about it. Most likely, he just prayed silently that we'd all get one.

Ah, the sweet, innocent days of childhood, eh? Next time I'm complaining about some office hag with a bad attitude at work, I'll remember the good times back in elementary school when the attacks were personal and public.