Little Zerita Inez

by Whitney
(Lawrence, KS)

While pregnant with her second child, my friend grew increasingly tired of pushy baby name suggestions from her family, so she found a neat way to shut everyone up.

She'd had her first child a year before, a boy she'd called Zachary (initials ZAP).

Tired of the endless advice on the subject of naming her second child, she finally declared that she'd already picked out names. "If it's a girl, we'll call her Zerita Inez, and that way we'll have a ZIP and a ZAP."

Good manners makes it impermissible to scoff in the face of apparent sincerity, so the family spent the next several months quietly hoping she'd have a boy.