When my brother and I were little, we had a lot of fun. We giggled a lot, laughed at each other and made up games that involved using our laundry chute for just about anything other than its intended purpose. Life at our house was pretty good.
But that’s not to say we didn’t have our sibling moments. For instance, when my brother learned his middle name, Kurt, he didn’t get it. “Kurt” was not a word that he had heard before. It wasn’t a thing in his world. But you know what was? Curtain. So he started telling people his middle name was Curtain. Clearly my parents were just confused when they were saying Kurt. They meant to say Curtain.
Being older, wiser and bossier, I made fun of him for this. The kid voluntarily named himself after drapes. I was his older sister. I knew my role.
However, he apparently knew his, too. So my smaller, cuter and more annoying brother started calling me the one thing that drove me nuts: “Little Megan.” Anyone who knows a young kid knows that calling them a baby or a little kid is the worst thing you could do. And to have the insult come from your younger brother was just too much.
At some point, you’d think we’d tire of such things.
Fast forward to 2008. Pete’s birthday is coming up, so I ask him what he wants. He says he’d like a subscription to The New Yorker. I order him said subscription, send it to the apartment he shares with two of his buddies, and address it to Peter Curtain. I giggle to myself as I imagine his roommates reading the address label and asking him how he pronounces his middle name, and is it Irish? (Who am I kidding? They’re dudes. They probably laughed out loud and asked if his parents were drunk when they named him).
Mego: 1. Pete: 0.
Okay, one more leap in time to last weekend. I recently had a birthday. And I received a Powell’s gift card in the mail:
That bastard tied the game up.
Oh, Little Megan… This is adorable! I knew I liked that Peter fellow for a reason…
Goddamn, you kids are awesome.
On a slightly related note, for many, man years I actually thought Pete’s middle name was Kurtain. No seriously, I did. In fact, if you’d have asked me 10 minutes ago what it was, I’d have said Kurtain. Figured it was some Irish baloney I’d never learned. And now this blog has shattered my illusions. Well done.
I still think you win, Pete will continue to get new issues of the New Yorker and you get a one time hit. In the long run, I call this a win.