"Hey, Slip!"

"Hey, Slip!" Albert yelled. "Listen, everybody! I'm calling my friend, Slip! 'Hey, Slip!'"

We were walking home from PSR one night, and our friend Albert thought this was the funniest, most clever butchering of the name Haislip anyone in the known universe had ever come up with, so he repeated it quite loudly about five times so everybody on the block could hear him and laughingly agree with him.

No one laughed, least of all the Haislip kids. Not that we were offended, mind you. We'd just heard it all before.

It had always mystified me growing up how no one could seem to get the name right. It was Haislip...just HAY-slip. Not HAS-lip, like almost every teacher would haltingly enunciate upon reading roll call on the first day of school. I never understood why it was so difficult to pronounce - it wasn't like it was one of those 37-letter Polish names or written in hieroglyphics or anything. No matter. We all got used to it by second grade or so.

The name supposedly has British roots from way back in the olden days, though I'm pretty sure we're not descended from royalty. We've been told that all Haislips are supposedly related to each other. I don't know exactly what that means. Maybe no one else wants to claim being kin to anyone with a name so outrageously difficult to pronounce.

But if anyone wants to know...it's HAY-slip.