When it comes to naming kids, some parents are well intentioned but unimaginative. Their kids wind up with glamorous show-biz names like Vanna, Farrah, Sylvester, and probably even Pee Wee.
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William Perry is one person whose parents could not have foreseen his fate. For three years now Perry, a manager at a Chicago insurance company, has regularly received phone calls at all hours of the day and night from giggling children, prank-playing men, and pleading women.
“I had a long-distance call one Sunday morning from a lady in Saint Louis,” says Perry, who had the gap between his front teeth repaired during the Bears’ Super Bowl season. “She wanted to talk to the Fridge. You could almost see her down on her knees saying, ‘Please don’t hang up on me, I’m such a fan. I just want to talk to you.’”
It’s hard to say whether the name confusion has also prompted his wife to be so ill-tempered and suspicious that she makes her husband hang up on a writer in midconversation.
“I tell ’em it’s going to be a nice day if it don’t rain,” says Coleman, proving himself an able adversary in such wars of wit.
“Some people–I don’t know, maybe they’re from Bridgeport or something–say ‘Hey, let’s give ol’ J.J. a call,’” he says. He’s reluctant to reveal the contents of those calls.
