Little Miss Sunshine

"Age" is the nickname that just kinda happened when I was a little kid and it has followed me all throughout my life. Adrienne is a long, 3-syllable word that everyone wants to shorten (or scream out in a Rocky voice) and "Age" is what evolved over time. No one in my family ever thinks about it. I'm just Age to them. Having a nickname is kind of great and it makes me feel a little special when those who love me and know me well feel confident calling me Age.

There is another nickname that a handful of people call me and it's an interesting story considering I have never told a single one of these people that other people call me this as well. When I was a little girl, I was a really happy-go-lucky kind of kid, therefore my mom always called me Sunshine. As I got older she used it less and less, probably because she felt that I was getting too old to be called such a whimsical name. Every so often though she'll still calls me Sunshine and it makes me happy.

Moving on from my mom, my first job was working at the local Subway in Trail and I usually worked the morning shift where there were lots of regular coffee customers. There was one particular older man who would always come in and say to me, "Good morning Sunshine! How are you today?" Every time he greeted me as Sunshine. Maybe he called all young girls Sunshine perhaps? Who knows! But it made me cheerful.

Here in PEI I have 3 more people who also call me Sunshine. One is a man who is a friend of my boss who comes into the restaurant all of the time to have coffee and/or lunch. He is an older Italian man who constantly flirts with me and offers to buy me anything I desire. Another is an older gentleman as well who goes to the same gym as I do and nearly 4 years ago we became instant friends. We bonded over the fact that he knew who the Trail Smoke Eaters are and that they were World Champions in 1939 and 1961. I was surprised he knew such random sports trivia about my teeny hometown hockey team. Anyway, at first he called me Lou Lou after a brief stint of island stardom I had when I appeared in a local commercial for Lou Lou Clothing. After about a year he dropped Lou Lou and began to call me Sunshine. My third PEI person who just recently started calling me the name is another person who goes to the gym (no not another older man!) and we began chatting a bit a few months ago. Now he suddenly started calling me Sunshine as well.

Why Sunshine? Is it just a really common nickname for a person to call another? Perhaps Sunshine is a good name that a male can call a female that he is not romantically involved with but still affectionate towards in a friendly manner? I would like to throw out there that my hair colour could not be the reason since I was not blonde when meeting all of these people. Maybe it is just 100% coincidence. Maybe I just exude a blinding radiance that can only be compared to the blazing rays of the sun.

Stop laughing.