Meet the family. None of us has ever appeared on Jersey Shore.

I asked my husband yesterday if I should use his real name here, or a fake one.  Naturally he chose a fake one.  Then I asked him who he wanted to be, and he proceeded to fire off about 20 increasingly ridiculous names at me, starting with Chuck and ending somewhere around Franklin or Balt (?).

He's half-Italian; his real name is an Italian one.  My family has always called him Guido as a joke.  So I said I would call him Guido, except then people were liable to picture him as some Jersey Shore character, which he is not.  (He doesn't have the hair for it.)  So he instructed me to call him...The Original Guido.  The O.G. for short.  Actually, when I asked him, facetiously, if the "The" needed to be capitalized, he specified that it should be lowercase t, capital H, lowercase e.

Oh.  And the entire thing should be italicized.  So meet my husband:  tHe Original Guido.

Yes.  I married this man, and I live with him every day, so you don't have to.  You're welcome.

Then we asked our 5-year-old daughter: "If you could be named something else, what would you choose?"  She looked at us like we were complete idiots, rolled her eyes, and ignored the question.

Meet my daughter:  The Princess.  The best thing about this name is that I can use it ironically, and she won't get it.  So everybody's happy.

Throughout this conversation, our 10-month-old son was chewing frantically on my shoulder with his sharp puppy teeth and growling at me.  He does this.  So he shall be known as the Monster.  Trust me.  It fits.

We also have two dogs, who shall be referred to by their real names, because if you want to stalk my dogs, go right ahead, weirdo: my dog India, who looks like Toto but cuter; and tHe O.G.'s dog Sam, a largely useless chihuahua.

Oh.  And the Princess has a hamster.  Named Giselle.  Giselle the Hamster.  Giselle's main purpose in life is to run loudly on her plastic wheel after the kids have finally gone to bed and tHe O.G. and I are trying to watch a movie in peace for once in our lives and why won't that thing be quiet?!

We don't own any cats, which I realize is unheard of for a blogger.  I'm hoping nobody revokes my right to blog due to lack of cats.  Because I'm simply not getting a cat.  And that's final.