Naming Contest Winner

I know, I know, people: I've let this go on too long. It's been over two months since I announced two finalists in the Contest To Name My Sea Monkey Brother (see "Contest Finalists 'Named'," Feb. 22, 2007).

Announcing a winner is long overdue, then — both for the contestants and for my Sea Monkey Brother, who I'm sure would welcome a bit of closure on the Nomenclature Front.

At this point I'd like to ask that all of you hold your reactions until the end of the post here. I anticipate just a smidgen of outrage here, and I want the opportunity to explain the situation before the hate mail rolls in.

All right, then. Here's goes.

The winner is . . . ME!!!

I've named my brother myself. It happened a couple of days ago, and quite by accident. I walked by his tank, stopped, took a long look at him, and the name came to me: JARVIS. He just looks like a Jarvis. There's no way around it. He's Jarvis. I looked my brother in the eye on Tuesday, called him Jarvis, and now I can't look at him and see anyone else but Jarvis. It's almost like I had some kind of divine visitation on this score.

Over the past 48 hours I've fought a little bit of a battle with myself on this. I did pledge, after all, to award naming rights to the best contest entry. At the same time, however, in light of this sudden, crystal-clear revelation (which I think could well qualify as an upper-case-M Moment for me, by the way) it would be a crime to call my Sea Monkey Brother anything but Jarvis (or an affectionate nickname to be determined at a later date). So Jarvis it is.

Plus I've been thinking: I never did say I couldn't enter the contest on equal terms with the rest of you. And for that matter, I didn't close off the pipeline of entries when I named my two finalists back in February. On the contrary, I affirmatively solicited more entries. There's no reason why I couldn't submit my idea. And so I did. And I win.

I'm thinking I'll take myself out for a steak dinner.

Consolation prizes are due, of course, to those Fabulous February Finalists, Magdalena in Mauritius and Chumsley in Oxford. To Maggie I intend to forward a digital copy of the bootleg video I made of a performance of The King & I on Broadway. This was a show from the 1996 revival, with Lou Diamond Phillips playing the King. Great stuff: I had terrific orchestra seats and caught all of the first and most of the second act before they confiscated my Camcorder. To Chumsley, a round trip ticket from Oxford to Limerick, redeemable any weekday between May and October.

Content-appropriate prizes, I should think.

All right, then. If any of you still think I've double-crossed you, have at me. I can take it.