Tales of WID 72 #17 Whatâs in a Name?
   Green Man looked around the mess hall and saw a table with a few of his fellow fighter pilots: Cheddar Cheese, Pandaherbs, and Dino Chick.  After grabbing his food he went and sat down with them.  Cheddar Cheese and Pandaherbs were playing a game of Scrabble, and looked up as he sat down, while Dino Chick was reading her computer pad, and did not look away from it.    âHow goes the game?â Green Man asked.    âWeâve just started, so itâs too early to tell,â Pandaherbs said.    âBut this is going to help me out,â Cheddar Cheese said as he placed the word âcheddarâ on the board.  âDouble word score, and a double letter score on the H.â    âPlaying your own callsign, or at least a part of it,â Green Man said.  âNice play.â    âDoes that mean I have to play âpandaâ?â Pandaherbs asked as she looked at her tiles.  âBecause I donât think thatâs happening anytime soon.â    âHowâd you get that callsign anyway?â Green Man asked.  âThereâs gotta be a story behind Pandaherbs.â    âItâs not that interesting,â Pandaherbs said.    âCome on,â Cheddar Cheese said.  âThereâs got to be something.â    âWell, howâd you get yourâs?â Pandaherbs asked.    âWell, you remember how I was one of the test pilots for the Falcon-class space fighters?â Cheddar Cheese asked.    Green Man rolled is his eyes.  âNo, youâve never bragged about that dozens of times.â    âI mean, it was an honor to be picked for that, butâŠdo either of you have any experience with them?â Cheddar Cheese asked.    âI got my start on the Eagle-class before switching to the Hawk-class,â Pandaherbs.  âI kind of miss the extra firepower, and I canât imagine how bad the Falcon-class would be.â    âIâve been on the Hawk-class my whole career,â Green Man said.    âOkay, well, the prototype versions of the Falcon-class had a problem with the environmental systems,â Cheddar Cheese said.  âNothing disastrous, but after my first test flight, the cockpit smelled like cheese, really strongly so, and the flight crew started joking about that, and the name kind of stuck.â    âThatâs hilarious,â Green Man said.  âCome on Pandaherbs, your story canât be that bad.â âWhat about your story?â Pandaherbs asked.    âI mean, my story is about as boring as Dino Chickâs,â Green Man said.    âHmm?â Dino Chick asked as she looked up from her computer pad.  âDid I hear my name?â    âWhatcha reading about?â Green Man asked.    âA new study suggesting that dinosaurs may have been a bit fuzzier than previously thought,â Dino Chick said.    âCool, cool,â Green Man said as Dino Chick went back to her reading.    âYeah, we all know she got her name from her love of dinosaurs,â Cheddar Cheese said.  âSo what?  You love the color green?â    âIâm all about environmentally friendly solutions to problems,â Green Man said.  âCome on, you guys know that right?â    âHonestly no, I donât think I did,â Cheddar Cheese said.    âMe neither,â Pandaherbs said.  âI donât think itâs come up.â    âHuh, Iâll have to be more vocal, I guess,â Green Man said.  âBut now we all know the reasons for each othersâ names, except for yourâs.â    âOkay, it goes back to when I first joined the ESS,â Pandaherbs said.  âLong before I even thought about becoming a pilot, but the nickname kind of stuck.  See, there was this thief we were after, and he used marijuana for medical purposes.  So I was posing as a dealer to try and find him, and Iâm waiting at the meeting point, only he doesnât show.â    âOkay, then what happened?â Cheddar Cheese asked.    âOkay, and Iâm not bullshitting you on this, I waited an extra twenty minutes, when I heard someone coming up behind me, so I turned around, and thereâs a panda there.â    âNo, come on, thatâs not true,â Green Man said.    âI swear itâs the truth,â Pandaherbs said.  âThe agent training me kept making jokes about me trying to sell drugs to that panda for years afterward, and eventually it became a nickname.â    âWhere did the panda even come from?â Cheddar Cheese asked.  âWas this in China?â    âNo, apparently the panda had escaped from a zoo,â Pandaherbs said.  âIt showing up was just a coincidence.â    âCome on, I donât believe that,â Green Man said.    âBelieve what you want,â Pandaherbs said.  âBut thatâs what happened.â












