Roy
Okay, I'm going to make this catch on. "Roy". Say it. It feels good. Okay, now I'll explain.
Roy is a name that makes me laugh. Just now, watching the otherwise annoying Amazing Race Family Edition (don't get me wrong, I LOVE The Amazing Race, but this family version ain't it), the blackjack dealer said his name was Roy, and the kid said his name was Roy too (which is sort of sad, because he's named after his dad, who was killed at Daytona Speedway, but that's all tangential), and I just laughed. Diana looked at me and chuckled, and I said "Roy" (savoring the "oooyyyy" sound), and laughed some more.
It all started back when I lived in Manhattan Beach with Jason (and a bunch of other drunks). Jason was the sort of guy that you could always count on to come up with something totally random and funny, especially when we were out drinking, and what was even funnier was that HE thought he was the funniest thing he'd ever heard, even if no one else got it. His ability to crack himself up was infectious. Anyway, he shared his appreciation of blaxploitation movies with me (Dolemite was the best), and somehow he came to find the name "Leroy" very funny to say. Although when he said it, it sounded more like "Leeee-roooyy". Stretch it all out.
Soon enough, he began calling everyone Leroy--it was a happy (often drunken) greeting. Of course, being young, drunken idiots ourselves, the rest of us (well, Pat and I at least) joined in, and pretty soon we would actually all greet each other as Leroy and have entire conversations where every person being discussed was called Leroy (different intonations would indicate who was who). I think Jason actually got a vanity plate made for his truck after a while that said "LEE-ROY".
So on it went, and after a while, we started shortening it to just "Roy", which sounded even funnier for some reason. I suppose if we'd actually met someone named Roy, it would have ruined it all, but we didn't. The only real Roy we could think of was Randolph Mantooth's character on Emergency! from the 70s. "What's up, Roy?" became a slightly snarky greeting.
At some point, "Roy" turned for us. It wasn't that it wasn't funny. It had just become such an easy word to say, we found ourselves turning it to other uses. It seemed to fit to describe someone we thought was a jerk, a tool, an asshole. "What a Roy!" "That guy's a total Roy." "Don't be a Roy." Being that we lived in LA, there were plenty such Roys around there. "Roy" became that smarmy dickhead from USC we would see everywhere, a symbol of obnoxious guys everywhere.
I moved away from there 8 years ago, but I took "Roy" with me. I decided to just keep using it in conversation and wait for peope to ask (most don't bother). Diana liked it--she's even surprised me a few times by breaking it out herself. I still use it to describe tools I run into. But more than anything, it just makes me laugh to have real people named Roy appear. I keep hoping and hoping that Survivor or Amazing Race or Big Brother will have someone named Roy, but they have yet to deliver. Someday. Until then, I just keep waiting for random Roys to show up and give me a chuckle.
I do wish it would catch on. I think it would work. I submitted it to Urban Dictionary, but they didn't post it. What do they know? If you read this, please start calling people Roy. You'll enjoy it.
Roy is a name that makes me laugh. Just now, watching the otherwise annoying Amazing Race Family Edition (don't get me wrong, I LOVE The Amazing Race, but this family version ain't it), the blackjack dealer said his name was Roy, and the kid said his name was Roy too (which is sort of sad, because he's named after his dad, who was killed at Daytona Speedway, but that's all tangential), and I just laughed. Diana looked at me and chuckled, and I said "Roy" (savoring the "oooyyyy" sound), and laughed some more.
It all started back when I lived in Manhattan Beach with Jason (and a bunch of other drunks). Jason was the sort of guy that you could always count on to come up with something totally random and funny, especially when we were out drinking, and what was even funnier was that HE thought he was the funniest thing he'd ever heard, even if no one else got it. His ability to crack himself up was infectious. Anyway, he shared his appreciation of blaxploitation movies with me (Dolemite was the best), and somehow he came to find the name "Leroy" very funny to say. Although when he said it, it sounded more like "Leeee-roooyy". Stretch it all out.
Soon enough, he began calling everyone Leroy--it was a happy (often drunken) greeting. Of course, being young, drunken idiots ourselves, the rest of us (well, Pat and I at least) joined in, and pretty soon we would actually all greet each other as Leroy and have entire conversations where every person being discussed was called Leroy (different intonations would indicate who was who). I think Jason actually got a vanity plate made for his truck after a while that said "LEE-ROY".
So on it went, and after a while, we started shortening it to just "Roy", which sounded even funnier for some reason. I suppose if we'd actually met someone named Roy, it would have ruined it all, but we didn't. The only real Roy we could think of was Randolph Mantooth's character on Emergency! from the 70s. "What's up, Roy?" became a slightly snarky greeting.
At some point, "Roy" turned for us. It wasn't that it wasn't funny. It had just become such an easy word to say, we found ourselves turning it to other uses. It seemed to fit to describe someone we thought was a jerk, a tool, an asshole. "What a Roy!" "That guy's a total Roy." "Don't be a Roy." Being that we lived in LA, there were plenty such Roys around there. "Roy" became that smarmy dickhead from USC we would see everywhere, a symbol of obnoxious guys everywhere.
I moved away from there 8 years ago, but I took "Roy" with me. I decided to just keep using it in conversation and wait for peope to ask (most don't bother). Diana liked it--she's even surprised me a few times by breaking it out herself. I still use it to describe tools I run into. But more than anything, it just makes me laugh to have real people named Roy appear. I keep hoping and hoping that Survivor or Amazing Race or Big Brother will have someone named Roy, but they have yet to deliver. Someday. Until then, I just keep waiting for random Roys to show up and give me a chuckle.
I do wish it would catch on. I think it would work. I submitted it to Urban Dictionary, but they didn't post it. What do they know? If you read this, please start calling people Roy. You'll enjoy it.
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