Kinder, gentler hurricane names

I think I have figured out why the hurricanes all of a sudden seem to have real mild names like Flossie or Gustav or Josephine or Hanna. Hanna is not a bad name, the girls have lots of friends named Hanna. It's just that Hanna is the name of a middle schooler, not a life-threatening storm.

But I think that the International Association of Storm Namers incorporated has a plan. They give the storms these kinder, gentler names in order to psych out the storms.

Like in sixth grade...if you heard about a kid named Eugene you just knew, even before you met him, that he was a geek and most likely was in the math club and played clarinet in the band. In the same way, if you heard about a kid named Spike, you knew he was trouble.

Just like the parents who by naming their son Eugene destined him to a life of nerdly ignominy, I think the hurricane naming guys have decided that perhaps they can do the same thing with storms. They think that they can shape the destiny of a hurricane just by giving it a prissy sounding name.

Like Gustav. Or last year there was a storm named Flossie.

Think about it. When a storm comes to their first day of "hurricane orientation" and they learn that their name will be "Flossie," what kind of self-esteem and respect are they going to have...."Hi my name is Flossie...I am going to level a dozen small islands and take out half of southern Florida."

No way....

It will be, "Hi...I'm Flossie...I think I will be a tropical depression...because frankly I have a prissy sounding name and I am a little bit depressed about that to start."

Let's hope that my thought is right and hurricane "Hanna" has all the bluster of seventh grade girl.

(on second thought, i may be all wrong on this...after a couple of weeks of middle school, I am thinking that maybe we don't want to name storms after seventh grade girls....)