The other night Jeff and I went out for dinner.  The place was crowded, so we ended up sitting in the bar under one of the TVs.  This particular TV was tuned to a rerun of Medium, the show with Patricia Arquette about a psychic named Allison DuBois.  I was facing away from the TV but Jeff wasn't, and partway through dinner, he said, "I'm looking at Bridget on the screen."

Bridget is Allison DuBois's daughter on the show, and the character is played by a young girl named Maria Lark.

"What's she doing?" I asked.

"She's sitting at the table eating cereal"

"Do you feel like you're seeing double?" I said.

It's a running joke we have about the show because I really identify with this kid character. For one, she says things like, "Can we have sloppy joes for breakfast?" I can relate to that.  And I think I looked a little like Bridget when I was a kid.  I had a round face and pale blond hair.  You'll have to do your own Google search for a picture of Medium's Bridget, but here's a picture of me when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade:

Nice, huh?

I identify with Bridget for other reasons, too.

I wanted Bridget as my confirmation name.  That's how they did it in the Catholic church when I was growing up:  you picked a saint and took his or her name as your middle name once you got confirmed. And I wanted Bridget.

I'm not sure why — all I knew about St. Bridget was that she was Irish. I think I just liked the name. In the part of Pennsylvania where I grew up, it was an unusual name, and to me, it had a whiff of the exotic.

It was too exotic for my mother. The only Bridget she could think of was Brigitte Bardot, so I had to pick another saint.

I won't tell you what I ended up with, but I will say it had no whiff of anything. It was the name of one of my babysitters. Boring.