Not What I Intended to Write About When I First Sat Down to Do This Today

When I went to my grampa Lloyd's funeral in Idaho Falls a few years ago I met an old friend of his whose name was Tex. Anyway everyone called him Tex, because he was from Texas. But before he was ever called Tex, back when he was younger and actually lived in Texas, Tex had a different name. He used to be called Corn Flakes, "Because mah name's Scyril! As in breakfast cer-uhl!" Which explained why his funeral attire featured a windbreaker jacket that read Kellogg's and had a big green rooster on it.

Needless to say, anybody who's had two wacky nicknames AND pronounces cereal, "cyr-uhl,"  is automatically logged somewhere in the upper left corner of my personal Amazingness Spreadsheet, but then Tex/Corn Flakes said the thing which I am about to tell you, and which landed him solidly in Cell A-1 of Amazingness. He told us about Corn Flakes, and that it was easier to just use that or Tex because, "I gotta real long name, yuh see. Mah full name's Scyril Bervis Murgatroid Hamberlain." And that's when my jaw hit the floor and my spreadsheet, um- exploded!- or something, because can you even be kidding me the man's name is SCYRIL. BERVIS. MURGATROID(!) HAMBERLAIN. But who cares about the Hamberlain? His middle name is BERVIS MURGATROID! This is not to be under-valued or assigned the improper formula, MSExcel users!

I spend a good deal of time thinking about Tex, more time than I probably ought to, really. On our road trip this weekend I had a lot of time to do thinking in the car. I was thinking of obnoxious things I'll do when I have children that will seem fun or funny or at least not abnormal to them when they're really little, and will cause paroxysms of eye-rolling mortification when they're older. One of the things is how, at the breakfast table, we will of course ALWAYS say, "Pass the cyr-uhl, Bervis," and the other person will pass it and have to say, "Murgatroid, Hamberlain!" This routine will not be optional. If at nine or eleven or thirteen years old my children sit sullen and stony across the table and, without making eye contact, ask me to, "Please pass the cereal," it will not matter that they politely added "please" at the beginning because I will not pass it to them! And it will not matter how pissed off they are or how they try to slip it by me while I'm on the phone or something because I will be prepared- because I imagined it already in my twenties one time when I was on a road trip! I will already know how the game goes and I will win!  I will be steadfast and smiling, and I will hold the cereal above their heads or put it on top of the cupboards where they cannot reach it because they first must say, "Bervis." When my children drag chairs over to climb on to reach the top of the cupboard I will sit on the chairs! I will have known that they would try to climb chairs because I imagined it on a road trip in my twenties! I will perform this and all manner of interferences and from it I will derive genuine enjoyment because my children will be nine or eleven or thirteen years old and incredibly snotty. And at last, when they are hungry and furious and have calculated which cell on the Spreadsheet of Hatred will read "MOM" in bolded red letters, and they look at me with tortured ire and hiss, "Pass the cereal... Bervis," I will obligingly pass it and say firmly, but in my pleasantest voice, "Murgatroid, Hamberlain!" because that will be The Way We Do It in This Family.

And this will be a kind of fun torture! My children will look back on it fondly when I'm old or dead or otherwise incapacitated as being kooky and classically "me," and when they think of it they'll laugh and tear up a little. I know because I imagined it one time while on a road trip in my twenties.

Also because I'm the Mom and I said so, Bervis.

 

Comments

[Alison]

The best part of this post to me (as a mother) is that you seem to realize that the things you imagine doing as a mother while on a road trip in your twenties rarely work out that way when you actually become a mother. But this? You HAVE to do this when you become a mother. Sure, your opinions on potty training and breast feeding may change when faced with the reality of those huge responsibilities ... but heavens to megatroid and for the sake of your future offspring, I hope you don't change your mind about this. When faced with the reality of someday passing the cereal to your actual children, hold ture to yourself and demand the response. You won't regret it.

(I'm delurking, btw. First came here via dooce and have enjoyed your sense of humor, so I've continued to read.)

[kerri]

SO awesome. A middle name that starts with mega and ends in troid can only end in tears. Of laughter.

[MonoCerdo]

Aw, fir cryin out lowd, Bervis, I ain't shoulda read this at werk cause now I'm crying all up in this here office and there ain't no end in sight to the hilarity!

M, U R cell A-1 in my Spreadsheet of Amazingness!

LURV,
SARAH MEGATROID BERVIS ESQ.

[Anthony]

Good entry.

Please, please, em, can we have another?

thank you.

- A

[Laura]

This is funny! Very very funny!

And, yes, you can link me...