my cousin, 'the thumb'

on names and naming

My cousin, The Thumb, has a theory.

When a man shaves his head, he must have a beard.

“Bald guys like me? We need to have a beard.”

The reason according to him?

If you have a shaved head and no beard, you look like a thumb.

As the oldest of cousins, I remember what he looked like without a beard.

I can imagine his bald head with a bald face. I can’t not see this. It’s happened.

I now see him as a ‘thumb’.

Every single time I see him, all I see is a thumb.

Sure, he’s a thumb that talks.

Sure, he’s a particularly brilliant man with his shit together.

And yet,

With no beard, he’d look like a thumb.

Thus the nick name here - “The Thumb”

Nicknames are funny.

They are typically not requested and frequently not deserved.

And yet they fit.

When ‘The Thumb’ learned that I call him ‘The Thumb’, he froze a moment.

He was stuck. The words caught in his throat.

I don’t think he liked it - the nickname.

At the same time, he had that ‘If I resist this will only get worse’ moment with himself.

In that moment, he was…