I know this is going to be a shocker, but I occasionally choke on the foot I stick in my mouth at times. I thought I’d share one of those bright, shining moments in my life.

When my son DJ was born, he was very, very premature, and due to a loss of a lot of blood, I was unconscious the entire delivery. Because it was a little country hospital, DJ had to be helicoptered to a larger hospital in Dallas, some two hours away. So, when I woke up, my son was not there. Very distressing for a new mother, to say the least.

To transfer hospitals, a child has to have a name on his birth certificate, and normally, the mother is the one that fills this form in. However, because I was clearly out of it, my then-husband, Dennis, had to fill out the form. And being Dennis, he decided to trash the name we’d agreed on — Michael Anthony — for a name that embodied his own family — William Harold. :-(

Now, in fairness to Dennis, he insists that I told him this was okay sometime that drugged night, and I am going to even say that they may have been possible. But I was heavily sedated, so I would have named the kid Daffy Duck or Mickey Mouse at that point. He should have stuck to the name that we agreed on.

It took me a month to heal from the birth of my son, and all along, as I’m talking to my family and friends, I’m calling my baby Michael. Dennis, obviously nervous, says nothing to me, until I’ve finally been released from the hospital and am headed to Dallas to meet my new baby. That is when I find out that my son has been named William Harold Bell. And that Den’s family is calling him Billy Bell. O.M.G. I was pissed. Billy Bell???

Sure enough, there was my absolutely beautiful little boy with a placard on his crib with the horrifying name Billy Bell. Immediately, I made the nurse take it down and put up a placard that said William Bell. I needed some time to fix this, but now wasn’t the time. In the end, I changed his nickname to DJ. It doesn’t stand for anything. I just didn’t want him to be called Billy. Being poor, we were stuck with the name.

Flash forward to a couple of years ago, I was telling this story to some new biker friends of Chef’s (my present husband). In the biker culture, almost everyone uses biker names, so you almost never really know what the people around you’s real names are, and such was the case with the guy I was talking to. His reaction was odd when I finished my story. Slowly, he pulled out his wallet and showed me his identification. William Harrold.

I’d just insulted this man’s name. I totally suck.

– Bird