Representing the letter O

In case you live under a rock and haven’t heard, I’m the living personification of the letter O. At least, according to my family.

When my triplet cousins were toddlers about a decade ago, I figured they were never going to remember my name when I visited. So I told them and all of my other relatives to refer to me as “O” from then on. To this day, I have never heard them use my actual name, Orrin.

A few years later, I took it a step further. With my new name now being a simple vowel, I figured I should own it. I went to a Lids hat store in a mall in Saginaw, Mich. and looked for a cap to wear around at all times with just that letter. The Baltimore Orioles cap (O’s) seemed like a solid pick, but that would’ve violated my undying loyalty to the Detroit Tigers.

Next, I found an Ohio State Buckeyes cap (OSU), but since my high school’s official fight song was “Hail to the Victors,” I knew I would never be caught dead wearing OSU gear. At least not within the Michigan state.

But then I saw it. A plain, yellow O on a black cap, which the cashier said was a University of Oregon cap. Thus, my real-life bitmoji was born while wearing that cap, as well as my first favorite college sports team. I even cut the thread of the word “DUCKS” on the back, leaving a C which I would later try to paint the space to make look like an O.

Spoiler alert: I eventually lost that cap in early 2015. Don’t worry, I eventually bought a green version at the Mall of America the next year.

But every word I use now has to be associated with that vowel. My favorite color: orange. Favorite shape: oval. Best beer: Oberon. Favorite state: Oregon. Favorite animal: orangutan. Favorite phrase: “Onward.” ... It goes on.

I tell this story to people all the time, causing some to be intrigued for the short term and others to even mimic me (or so I suspect). I like to think there’s an O God out there who sent me down to this circular planet to do their work.

God forbid if I ever run into some sort of contradiction in my life, where I have to make a logically bad life choice in favor of the letter O. I once had a dream I was competing on the hit reality television show Survivor and was in the final three and had to vote out one person or the other. While I could have easily won the million-dollar prize by voting out one person, the O Gods forbade it since their name started with an O, so I lost. Good thing it was just a dream.

If you think this is silly, let me ask you this. Is this sillier than the belief that a bearded guy in the clouds decides if we get to live with him or in a fiery place? Is it sillier than dismissing global warming as a myth? Is it sillier than the idea that a goat can curse a baseball team for seven decades because they didn’t get to watch their game?

Believe whatever you want, but if it involves the letter O, it will involve me, too.

Onward.

Contact Orrin Shawl at oshawl@newtondailynews.com