Saturday, June 21, 2008

At The Root Of The Matter




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.


Prentiss’ father died in a freak accident during the harvest prior to Prentiss’ birth. Apparently a combine with stuck blades shouldn’t be hammered with a crowbar—especially not by an 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 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.

8 comments:

paisley said...

very clever.. in a typically bubba kinda way... good to hear from you....

kaylee said...

LOL !!!!
Outstanding!

Scot said...

never saw it coming--laughing here

Anonymous said...

yep, laughing here too, don't take this the wrong way but my Dad would've loved your stuff, same sense of humour........

Anonymous said...

...and your pen is like a sword cutting through the guilt of this families name...and so nicely done with humor that not a drop of the child's blood stains the carpet of the McVicker home...

Bubba said...

Kaylee, Scot, Paisley-- Thank you and thanks for stopping by!

Jo-- Why would I take that wrong? By all accounts, your father was a prince among men, good-looking to a fault, and wise beyond his years. ;) Thanks, too... I appreciate the comparison very much.

Poetman-- Jeez, I wish I'd just written that. Thanks...

R.L. Bourges said...

be well, bubba.

Anonymous said...

*grins*

Especially a warped sense of humor.