Really Deep Thoughts

"I went to school with a girl named Kim Patience," my mom mentioned the other night, and we all sputtered and laughed and made the obligatory stripper jokes, because everybody knows if your last name is also an English word, you could have a successful career as a stripper.

I stopped laughing when I realized my last name is an English word...

I think with a last name like Patience, you are destined for glitzy bikini tops, sticky beer-laden poles, and synchronized hip-grinding to Guns 'N Roses, collecting counterfeit fives in your thong.

With a last name like Eager, though, I think I could be an upper-class stripper, catering to men with corduroy jackets with elbow patches, who drink Sidecars and offer tips in the form of town-car chauffeuring and signed first editions of Nobel Literature Prize novels.

I could be that kind of stripper.