Austin, TX

When my brother Kevin and his wife were expecting their son, they decided to name the baby Elvis, my brother being a huge Elvis fan. My mother thought that this was a particularly bad idea. “He will be teased in school,” she said, among other things. That turned out to be a moot point as Kev and Liz home schooled Elvis until recently. The argument went on for months and eventually things went from bad to a “subject-not-to-be-discussed” as it just made everyone angry.

Then one day I was listening to the news. It seems a new constellation had been discovered and it was called Ophiuchis. An evil thought crept into my mind and took root…“And we shall call the baby Ophiuchis!” Muahahahahaha…

So I called my brother Kevin and urged him to call our mother and tell her he’d changed his mind about calling the baby Elvis. I explained my evil plan and thusly, he called our mother.

“Hey Mom,” he said. “I think you’re right. We’re not going to call the baby Elvis after all.”

“Oh good,” she said, relieved, “I think you’ve made the right decision.”

“Yeah. I was listening to the news today and it seems they have discovered a new constellation. Ophiuchis. So we have decided to name the baby, Ophiuchis, instead of Elvis.”

“Oh….” And thus 15 seconds of silence ensued.

I know that doesn’t sound like a long time but count that out in your head and you’ll see how long that silence stretched out. That is a very long time, indeed, when it comes to my mother being silent. I think she was struggling to find something that she possesses very little of and that would be TACT.

Finally, in a very small voice my mother said, “Welllllll, we could call him Opie.”

My brother burst out laughing. He couldn’t help himself. Of course he also told mother that I’d put him up to it, so I was in the dog-house. What’s new?

After that, our dear mother, found the name Elvis to be perfectly acceptable. Heheh…. I wonder why?

In a somewhat related story, my mother can never remember the words to songs, so she makes up her own.

Many years before Elvis was born, I was visiting with my folks in Germany and chanced to hear my mother singing.

“We had eeeee ohhhhh, just like Bogey and Bacall….”

“Mother,” I said, raising my eyebrow quizzically, “what the heck is E O?”

“I don’t know,” she said defensively, “thats what the song says!” As if she couldn’t be held responsible for stupid writers writing stupid lyrics. She, after all, was just singing what they had written. I half expected her to stomp her little foot.

“It’s We.had.IT.ALL!,” I said, enunciating each word clearly.

“OH!, yes, that makes MUCH more sense!”

The next day I heard my mother singing.

“We had eeeee ohhhhh, just like Bogey and Bacall….”

I just laughed and shook my head, sighing to myself.

When Elvis Orion arrived, though, I called up my mother.

“Hey Ma,” I said, “we finally have E O.”

Sometimes you have to wait awhile for a good pun to come to fruition.

humor, family, elvis, Ophiuchis, Bogey, Bacall