Poots

My brother, Nick, and I were somewhat obsessed with Michael Jackson in the late eighties. We could be found at some point, almost daily, watching Moonwalker. Yes, we were a little dorky, but starting at a young age, we knew good music when we heard it.

With our extreme fandom, you can imagine our excitement when we were visiting Epic Center in Orlando and stumbled upon the Captain E-O show.

For those of you unfortunate few who may not know, Captain E-O was a 3-D movie exhibit starring Michael Jackson. 

While watching this amazing spectacle, Nick being eight, and myself six, we grew an instant love for the odd looking furry character. 

To our child ears, we interpreted his name to be "Poots," when it was really Hoots. I am guessing that is what we heard because at that age we were somewhat fixated on flatulence. Except, my father also heard it as Poots. After the movie, we laughed and laughed about the name Poots. How silly it was to name a character a word that refers to farting. Nick and my father immediately decided this was a wonderful new nickname for me. I wasn't a farter by any means, in fact, the two of them were gas houses, but somehow I got the name. The only thing fitting about it was that I wore my Captain E-O shirt as often as possible.

So, as simply as that, I became affectionately known as Poots to my father. This was not a big problem until I got a little older. I outgrew my t-shirt, my love for Captain E-O faded, but the nickname stuck. 

This became unfortunate one night as I was hanging out with my brother's cool friends. Being two years older than me, they were, at the time, in eighth grade and I in sixth. We were sitting on the front porch just shooting the sh*t. At this point, I didn't have a crush on any of these boys, but loved hanging out with them. And, nothing was better than walking down the hall of the middle school and having them talk to me. The problem came when my father decided I was too young to be sitting out on the porch at whatever late hour it was. 

When he came out, and in front of everyone declared, "come on, Poots, time to come in," I almost died of embarrassment. Long after I went inside, red-faced, I could hear the boys howling, "POOOOOOOOTS!" Needless to say, those hallway run-ins weren't so good anymore. The halls echoed the name for all to hear. Throughout all my days of knowing and seeing those boys, the nickname stuck. 

So, why am I telling you this? It's a fair question. Tonight, I went to play basketball with a new group of people. I had heard through a random grapevine that some people play on Wednesday nights at my school. Being the bold person that I am, I just showed up expecting whoever these people were to let me play. As I walked into the gym with all of that confidence built up inside, the shout of "POOOOOOOOTS" brought me right back down. I actually may have twitched as all of those memories came back to me. When I was able to get ahold of myself, I looked up to see all of Nick's friends ready to play basketball. 

The good thing: they let me play. They know that I am capable of holding my own, so there was no initiation process. I was immediately accepted. The negative: every once in a while I hear something along the lines of "shoot it Poots" in the middle of a game. Luckily it doesn't throw my shot off too much!