Twelve alternate definitions of an acronym, one of which has been scientifically proven to kill 99.79 percent of undesirable household bacteria

I don't know about you, but when I'm out meeting my legions of fans, I get tired of repeating the blog's full title over and over again. "Thumb drives and oven clocks," "Thumb drives and oven clocks," over and over, it's "Thumb drives and oven clocks," the kids, they love it, they crave it, they need it. Don't get me wrong--I like the title. It's come to sort of mean something, vaguely, in a shadowy half-thought fashion. For me, at least. And it's not that the title doesn't roll off the tongue in a sing-song fashion. Go ahead: say it out loud a few times: pretty soon you'll find yourself inventing entirely new musical notes for each syllable as you skip through a field of daisies and tall, whispery grasses, the sun beaming down on your delirious, smiling face as you sing to yourself, over and over, "Thumb drives and oven clocks! Thumb drives and oven clocks! Oh oh oh how I do so love me some Thumb drives and oven clocks!" You will feel in tune with the world, you will feel your bank account stabilizing and rising of its own accord, small children will appear alongside your path to hand you small cups of sports drinks as you race towards your own beautiful oblivion; indeed, Thumb drives and oven clocks will help you find inner peace, outward beauty, and ultimate, unsurpassable joy, and ye shall weep at the thought of your own being in perfection!

It's just that, you know, being someone who writes sad stories about sad people, I haven't got time for obscene bliss. So it would be nice to have a simplified version of the title, some short-hand version that I could use in conversation. For my own protection. But there's danger, there. If I refer to the site as "Thumb Drives" people will falsely assume I write a technology blog. And if I refer to the site as "Oven Clocks" people will falsely assume I blog about your grandmother's country-themed kitchen. Neither contains the truth of the full title, which neatly and accurately portrays my blog as a storehouse of wisdom related to the clockwork robots that cook your grandmother's breakfast.

So then we turn to the corporate solution: the acronym, that ultimate alphabet-soup shortener of word-spaghetti cake. Acronymize the title of this blog and you get "TDAOC" and all my problems are...

Crap. By which I mean, uh-oh. Yeah, say it out loud. "TDAOC." You'll see what I mean. Did you hear the birdies warble their song? Can you smell the Gatorade in the crystalline air?

Henceforth, I'm forced to conclude that the only solution to this mind-bogglingly non-existent problem is to generate alternate--yet related!--versions of the blog's title. Related, because they're based off that bubbly-gummily snappy acronym, alternate, because they are guaranteed not to leave you in a state of euphoria. You'll want to memorize the following list before you attend my upcoming public appearances, as I'll certainly be using them in an effort to keep myself grounded in reality, and you won't want to be one of the uncool kids left out in the cold, scratching ineffectively at the in-joke's locks. (I'll be appearing next week at the grand opening of Dinky's Car Wash in Ashtabula. I'll be the guy in the oversized car tire costume. Sexy.)

1. That Door Ain't Ours, Chad!
2. Toilets Do as Ogres Couldn't.
3. Tired? Depressed? Angsty? Opiates, Crybaby.
4. Trying Dimes and Other Coins.
5. Tongue Dad After, Old Chum.
6. Two Dogs Ate Our Classmate.
7. TAA-DAA! Another Olfactory Confession!
8. That Darby Ate Our Classmate.
9. Teens, Displaying Affection, Ogle Cops.
10. Time Displays and Outing Ciphers
11. Ten Didn't Actually Occur, Certainly?!?!
12. True: Darby's An Oversized Clutz

(Feel free to groan at number ten. I know I did.)

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And in other news, the story I've begun working on this week, I find it terribly exciting, and I think it might take me less than 50 hours to finish it. Maybe.