Nicknames

Sometimes, nicknames have a long and complex back story. Sometimes, nicknames are just a mystery, their meaning lost to time and/or conflicting stories of their origins.

Neither of these were the case with Bill.

At work one day, walking back from lunch with the gang, he had carelessly thrown his food wrapper into a recycle bin.

“Hey–that doesn’t go in there!” Becca said to him.

Normally, Bill wouldn’t have cared. He would’ve shrugged and kept walking.

But Bill had a crush on Becca so he felt compelled to make it right and make a big show of doing so and impressing her with his love for the environment.

“Oh yeah, you’re right”, Bill said to Becca. “Don’t worry–I’ll get it!”

He practically dove into the bin. His entire upper body was inside it. “Here it is!” came his muffled voice. He went to pull himself out of the bin…and he was stuck, unable to pull his flabby gut out of the lid.

He stood there, bent over, looking like the recycle bin was in the process of eating him, for about an hour–until the paramedics arrived and cut him loose.

And by the time he emerged, embarrassed and surrounded by snickering onlookers, he was “RecyclaBill”.