Grrl Power #1312 - Epiphonym

Thank you for the support! You guys are awesome!

"...that was about the hardest thing I've ever done and I've ________________"
• sat in a meeting with the joint chiefs without rolling my eyes.
• resisted the urge to punch out a sexist MTI* during basic.
• had to learn how to put on a bra in my adolescence with wildly fluctuating super strength. Come to think of it, just pulling up my jeans was often a real potential disaster until I learned how to control my strength and speed. I can tell you I learned very quickly to keep a few changes of outfits in my locker at school. 
• didn't break one guy's hand who grabbed my boob during drills. Oh, wait, I absolutely crushed his hand. No, Sydney! Not with my boob! How would that even... Hmm. Maybe if I squeezed his hand between my boobs then maxed out my armor...

*Military Training Instructor, basically a Drill Sergeant.  

I don't know how often first names are used in the military. I assume when there aren't any officers around and you're lounging in the barracks or out digging a ditch somewhere, people revert to first names for the squadmates they know. In a military hospital? I can see a doctor referring to a patient by rank, just cause it's easier than learning a bunch of last names, or maybe it's more formal, especially if the doctor is an officer. But I also figure there's an even chance that when you're convalescing in a hospital bed, someone might roll up with a gregarious bedside manner too. And probably a nurse or orderly might not be so formal, but then Peggy might not have wanted to correct a parade of hospital staff as they came through to check on her. I'm just saying, it might have been like a week or two between when she lost her leg and the first time she actually said "Peggy" outloud to anyone. 

I think I've already done all the "Eileen/Irene/Peggy" jokes, so I'll leave that be for now. And I know I've said it before, but I myself didn't even realize naming my one-legged female character Peggy was a pre-existing joke. I think I named her Peggy because I had just learned that Peggy was shorty for Margaret, the same way Dick is short for Richard and Bud is short for Aloysius. Okay, obviously Bud is not short for Aloysius, but apparently people can just make up whatever shit they want when it comes to "X is short for Y." Dick isn't short for Richard, it's a shorter and completely different name. Same thing for Peg/Margaret. Hell, I could say Riboflavin is short for Dave, even though it's longer, because there are no rules and nothing matters. 

Anyway, I thought the Margaret/Peggy thing was interesting, and I had to call her something, so here we are.