Mad Meg the Witch

I think I need a name for my alter ego. It's that part of me---my other self who quietly watches most of the time while I handle life, but who occasionally kicks the door down and yells at everybody to shut up and listen to her.

I recently attended a writing workshop where one of the teachers spoke of her habit of using the name Nasty Louise on her blog whenever she needs to cut the crap and say what is on her angry mind. Life gets real? Nasty Louise makes an appearance.

My friend Angela from graduate school often used the phrase snitty little woman, as in, "The children (or subordinates or airline staff, etc) are being belligerent; must be time for snitty little woman to show up and get things done."

Dr. Jekyll had Mr. Hyde, you know. Not that I plan on getting all gruesome and murderous in my spare time like that Victorian nightmare-of-a-family-practitioner.

I just need a name for my latent other self who lurks around and once in awhile surfaces to blow off steam. I'm thinking about Witch Woman because I would so love to be considered mildly weird in the sense that "I see your fortune, child who refuses to go to bed, and fate will not be kind to you."

It's a viable contender.

I'm also considering Mad Meg, because it's alliterative (duh), and because for a compact little word, mad packs a wallop. I mean, as an adjective, it has eight commonly used definitions. My favorite: disordered in mind (clearly), carried away by intense anger (yes!), and marked by intense and often chaotic activity (my life in a nutshell).

Mad Meg threatened to show up this afternoon when Jack took a bunch of peanut butter cups and mashed them all over the back of the car, carefully cramming them into the crevices between seats and into cup holders. He is such a maddening little pack rat, always seeking to shoehorn random crap into tiny spaces. Give him a stick of gum and he will chew it up and stuff it into a nearby electrical outlet.

It's enough to make a mother completely loony, I promise. If you haven't ever cleaned melted chocolate and peanut butter out of the crannies in the back of a mini van, I will happily summon Mad Meg the Witch Woman, who I keep on retainer; she will vehemently tell you all about it.