Prentiss Calder Biff-- The name held refined dignity. Certainly Prentiss' parents took great care in selection, given their abrupt surname. Biff didn't have the euphonic flow of McVicker, mother's maiden name.
The boy's father died in a freak accident during the harvest prior to Prentiss’ birth. A combine with stuck blades, it seems, shouldn’t be hammered with a crowbar by its inebriated driver.
After her husband's untimely demise, Freda McVicker Biff, by necessity, moved in with her inlaws. Her insistence on re-assuming her maiden name, along with her dogged resolve that the boy be called the formal 'Prentiss Calder' caused division within the family- there was a riff at the Biff's.
The controversy raged, until one day Prentiss Calder ran in from playing in the fields, covered head to toe in cockleburs and screaming in pain. The boy suffered mightily each time his mother extracted a bur from his blotchy red body.
After supper that evening (and several liters of elderberry wine), the boy's uncles decided that Prentiss Calder Biff was not a name for a lad who could withstand an attack of killer nettles. In a ceremony worthy of an apprentice knight, he was christened Sticker McVicker.
Cosmic kismet had spoken and the subject was not mentioned again. What goes around comes around-- a sense of humor is a lethal weapon.
2 comments:
Ouch! Only you could think of this, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Your response reminds me of that classic 'disclaimer' Jerry Seinfeld gave George Costanza when trying to explain away George's vaguely-gay tendencies. "I wouldn't worry about it, George, some guys just can't decide which team to play for. If you're gay, you're gay... not that there's anything wrong with that."
George would then reply, "No, of course not." Heehee... that show was hilarious.
Thanks for the read, in any event.
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