Not much going on here

So, I'll share a snippet of conversation from our meet-up with Cliff's cousins last weekend.

As it happens, there was another Donna there, one everybody in the group has known a lot longer than they've known me; so of course it got a little confusing.

Evelyn said, "You're going to have to think of another name we can call you."

"No problem; just call me Mo. I'm used to answering to that."

She seemed flabbergasted. "That's going to take some getting used to," she said.

So I tried to explain to them how, back in the old chat room days on AOL, you went into a chat room with your "screen name", also the same as your AOL email address... minus the "@aol.com".

At that time my screen name was mo2773. The "mo" was for Missouri, and the numbers were part of my phone number. Hey, I was new to the Internet and was having a problem coming up with a screen name that wasn't taken. I had no idea I was going to be entering a chat room where "Mo" would be my name.

In the chat room, I got to know FM and JenFar and Bnana and Jet and Skiss and Qwkwit and Westbilt, and dozens of others with strange names. I used those names to communicate on the chat screen, and that's what I called them if I met them in person. And they called me "Mo".

Soon I was answering to that name as naturally as I answer to "Donna" (or "Sweet Pea", if it's Cliff talking to me).

Unfortunately, I think Cliff's cousins and their spouses could only think of Moe, the one associated with the three stooges; so nobody called me anything.

I think my explanation of how I got my nickname convinced them all that I was a bit touched in the head.

I guess you just had to be there in the chat room days to understand.

Nobody's called me Mo for a long, long time. I miss that.