For this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill has challenged us to respond using the word “chip.”

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I swear to you this is true. A kid I met at the beginning of seventh grade at school was named Chip Wood. Well, his name was actually Charles Wood, but he told everyone to call him “Chip.” But I didn’t. I referred to him as “Axe.”

One day he called me aside and asked me why I called him “Axe.” In answer to his question, I asked one of my own. I asked him, “What is something you can do with an axe?”

He gave me a strange look and then said, “I don’t know. What is something you can do with an axe?”

I was somewhat taken aback because I was sure he knew the answer and that he must have heard it a million times. But it seemed he was being genuine with his question, so I simply said, “Chip wood.”

Then he shocked me when he responded by saying, “What?”

I thought maybe he didn’t hear me, so I repeated my answer. “Chip wood.”

Then he said, “Why do you keep saying my name instead of answering the question?”

“Because,” I said, “your name, Chip Wood, is something you can do with an axe. You can chip wood with an Axe.”

“No,” he said. “You don’t chip wood with an axe, you chop wood with an axe. So I would appreciate it if you would quit calling me Axe.”

“Okay, fine,” I said. “I will no longer refer to you as Axe.”

From that day forward I called him, “Chop.”

Needless to say, Chop and I were not the best of friends in junior high school.

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