A good week for toms and tallies

Tommy can you hear me?  Although Thomas is still in the top sixty-five male baby names, I can't remember teaching any boys named Thomas, Tom, or Tommy.  I am intrigued by baby naming trends, having taught preschoolers for a ridiculously long time. I often wish I'd kept a tally of student names. The associations that accompany those names could be cautionary tales for expectant parents!  Let's just say that if you want your daughter to always wear panties to school, don't name her Chloe or Alexandra!  Statistics will bear me out on this. Should you need a kid to run for help, ask for a Jack or a Mike.


As a teen I worked in the hospital kitchen preparing special diets for diabetics and other patients.  One of my duties was tallying the orders marked on patient menus, including the special dietary requirements and special requests.  This was a good gig, sitting near the fan in the relatively cool dietary office.  Compiling this count required shortcut abbreviations:

tom jce = tomato juice

FF = fat free

SF = salt free

VW = 6 vanilla wafers

LD = 3 Lorna Doone cookies  

van pdg = vanilla pudding

crax = 5 saltines

RA cherries = Royal Anne cherries

WP RA cherries = water-packed Royal Anne cherries for diabetics

soft RA cherries = canned pitted Royal Anne cherries 

WC = whipped cream 

It's the pits when you can't have WC on your red jello cubes:  

I'm so lucky to have the promise of good toms from Janie to get me through each day until lunchtime.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder