Tuesday 27 October 2009

The origins of Troutie


Whenever my friends leave their phones in bars, I get the phone call. That’s because invariably I’m in their contacts under Troutie, Trout, Troutface, Troutmaster, or something similar. Imagine; you find a phone in a bar and the last two dialled numbers were ‘Home’ and ‘Troutface’? Which one are you going to call?

For those of you that give a shit:

It all stems from two innocent text messages. One which I sent to my adorable friend, Lady Violet, who is of Guyanese descent, calling her my ‘Guyanese Goddess’ and the other where she replied, rather charmingly, that I was her ‘Old English Trout’.

To be honest, this is a nickname which would have faded into obscurity except for the fact that on the night when my girlfriends were trying it on for size, a series of unpredictable and life-changing events unfolded which meant that it stuck.

My friend Vivienne Westwood and I were born one day apart. This means that most years we celebrate our birthdays together. On this particular occasion Westwood, Lady Violet and I went out for dinner with friends, got very drunk and ended up having a lock in at a Caribbean restaurant where we drank and ate chocolate cake until 4am on a Thursday night/Friday morning. We didn’t pay for very much of it either as we were hanging out with the restaurant owner and his employees. When it was eventually time for us to crawl home and get dressed for work the next day, our new friends gave us money from the till for a cab home without the slightest attempt at getting in the cab with us.

There we were, three very drunk women hanging out with a bunch of guys, getting freebies and not one of them was trying to get in our knickers. This was one fucking weird birthday night. As we drunkenly somersaulted into the taxi, one of the chefs handed us the business card for the restaurant with his phone number on the back.

So not only is this the story of how I got my nickname but it’s also the story of how I met my Jamaican: the best birthday present I ever got.

Bushman, simply accepted my moniker without once asking its origin or thinking that it was weird. When he called me ‘Troutie’ as if it was genuinely my name, I thought it was hilarious. But this was not nearly as hilarious as when he called me Troutie in more intimate moments, which had me rolling around with laughter so much so that I couldn’t continue with what I had previously been doing.

And so it stuck. I am Troutie and I love the fact that it is one ugly name, because when people meet me they are expecting to meet a trout and however ugly I may be, I am way better looking than this.

10 comments:

  1. Yes, you would not want to be called a fish in the middle of it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've only just stumbled onto your blog but I have to say that I have an alter ego that appears when I've been suitably irrigated with horizontal lubricant. I like her a lot - she's loud, very funny (at least to me) and doesn't give a shit. I also named her 'Troutwoman' years ago. I think it stems from my mother calling me a 'mouthy trout' when I was a teenager and it just sort of seemed appropriate.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have no words.
    Other than Troutie suits you down to the ground x

    ReplyDelete
  4. I actually find trout rather stately fish. However, they are also bottom feeders which is probably a less attractive element to adopting their moniker...

    ReplyDelete
  5. You think Troutie is an odd name?

    Here from The Bloggess; I like this plaice.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Damn. You made me wake the kids with my laughing. Stop it at once.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'd take Troutie over Carpie any day.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Two of my best friends are called Nutter and Cellulite.

    More worryingly, both of them are male.

    LCM x

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well, after being led here by the Bloggess, I was not disappointed. ;) And I'm glad you don't look like a trout. That just wouldn't be fair to you OR your kid...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Love it. I take it you manage to retain your composure by now in the more intimate moments?

    ReplyDelete