The year of Karen

Remember in   that underrated but simply wonderful show, "The Middle", when Eden Sher's character decided her senior year would be the "Year of Sue?" 

 Eden touchingly portrayed a woefully optimistic goofball who always managed to pick herself up, dust herself off, and start all over again. 

 Her senior year was filled with clubs and college applications and and summer plans and anticipating things like prom and graduation. 

 It was indeed  the Year of Sue.

So now social media hijacks my common, pedestrian name , a perfectly pleasant derivative of Katherine, and suddenly 2020 is "The Year of Karen."

So why am I not sharing the enthusiasm of Sue Heck in this, the "Year of Karen?"

My name will forever  be associated with a pandemic and a horrendous stereotyped white  woman of privilege.

My Mom chose "Karen" because she felt I looked like a "little Dutch girl."

WTF???

Also, she was a thousand percent convinced I was going to be a boy whom she wanted to call Eric. 

 (Karen, spelled backwards, rhymes with this name)

She needed a middle name that started with the letter "R" and chose Randi, which as I kid I hated 'cause it's a "boy's name", 'though I like it just fine now.

But the masculine spelling of the name "Randy"  means something VERY specific, so I, Karen Randi, am both "pure"--the meaning of "Katherine"--and "horny."

Pure and horny in the year of Karen.

Thanks, Mom...