Just finished reading Tom Perotta’s Little Children, now made famous by the movie with Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson. Though it was entertaining, it earned three out of five stars for triteness. The book was recommended to me a couple years ago by a friend known for eclectic tastes. I should’ve known - he’s also a rabid Desperate Housewives fan.

But one thing I noted with a sardonic grin was the way a gaggle of suburban wives in the novel were so verklempt with a stay-at-home dad who made periodic appearances at their playground.

(Yes, I actually used the word verklempt. Shush.)

You know what they called him? “The Prom King.”

They called him that because he was hot. Well, not just hot, but so hot that none of them could gather up the ovaries and say, “Hi. I’m Marsha. And you?”

So instead of using his actual name, for weeks they gossiped among themselves about the object of their suburban desire. In this situation, it makes sense. Calling him the Prom King says more about them than it does him.

But what that did for me was remind me of all the times I’ve done the same thing to people around me, maybe because I didn’t catch their names through lipreading, or maybe purely for the fun of it.

For example, there’s a woman at our gym who constantly meets clients with a latte in hand. We’ve talked to her a couple of times, and she stopped to give me a pointer one day. Usually, though, we’re on a strictly “hey, g’morning” basis. And somehow she’s worked herself into our daily vocabulary: “Oh, Coffee Trainer was at the gym again this morning. She says hi.”

She’s not the only victim of my glibness.

“Candyman” used to be the guy on the train who handed out candy on Fridays.

“Hurry-Up Woman” is kinda unimaginative, I guess. But, dang, it fit the blur that rushed past us every morning.

“Gus” is the white, rotund, and cranky bus driver we see sometimes.

“Pervert Fudd” is the guy who we see around town with a woman we know for a fact not to be his wife. I think someone told us his real name was Elmer?

Kind of reminds me of stories I used to hear about older deafies enjoying uncaptioned TV because they could make up their own stories. Often, when shows were re-aired with captions, they were crestfallen to find out the real McCoy was incredibly inane in comparison to their own improvised plots.

I know I’d be torn to find out “Coffee Trainer’s” real name isn’t Mochalatta but Mary.

Sometimes I view this tendency as a sort of karmic retribution for every time I’ve ever been called “that… the, the… uh, that deaf girl.”

When I’m self-indulgent, I call it another of my idiosyncrasies.

When I’m being more mature or nerdy, I view it as a coping strategy for someone who needs language to describe the people she sees.

But in all honesty, maybe I’m just being lazy.