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Non-Fiction
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| What's in a name? | |
| By Snodlander | ||||||||||||
| 09 February 2007 | ||||||||||||
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A while since I told of my daughter's relationships. I think she's avoiding me for some reason My Darling Daughter came home last weekend. So did wimp-boy, though I hardly saw him. Circumstances conspired to keep us apart. Or maybe it wasn’t circumstance. Maybe it was wimp-boy. On Friday afternoon, before she went out clubbing in Maidstone with her ex-school friends, we chatted. The Missus is concerned. She thinks Number One Child is far too blasé about the forthcoming nuptials. It is, after all, a scant seven months away, and there is so much to do. She wants to give her every assistance, but she doesn’t want to seem to be taking over the event. Number One shrugged. Sure. If she wanted to organize stuff, that’s fine. Whatever. Some weeks earlier, as news of the wedding trickled through to me (I am, after all, merely the bankroller), Grace had talked about names. They were going to double-barrel themselves. Simms-Wood. It sounded to me like the name of a gated community. ‘Spend your golden years in the peace and tranquillity of Simmswood’. This whole changing names thing has always seemed to me to be a bizarre tradition. I just could not imagine myself with a different surname. It is part of my identity. Part of me. When we were engaged, I told The Missus-to-be that if she wanted to keep her surname, that would be fine by me. She said that, no, she was fine taking my name. A couple of days later I found a piece of paper with her new signature practiced over and over again. It seemed she was actually keen to be Mrs Me. How odd. So on this Friday afternoon, as we discussed halls and menus and cakes and flowers, Darling Daughter happened to mention names again. They had changed their minds. They were not going to double-barrel their name. Instead, wimp-boy was going to take her name. “But it was Steve’s idea”, she said. “Steve wants you to know that. He’s not doing it because I told him to.” They seem to be under the mistaken opinion that this would make him seem less of a wimp in my eyes. That if he wanted to take on the role of bride, that makes him more macho than if he was ordered to. “What does his Mum think about that?” I ask. There is no love lost between wimp-boy’s parents and Grace. What they would think of their son surrendering his family name to this harlot that had seduced him away from them I dreaded to think. “He hasn’t told her yet.” (And as I write this, he still hasn’t) So Sunday was spent in a flurry of phone calls to hotels and halls (“You mean August this year?”), Monday onwards to florists and bakers and caterers (“Could you do a vegan meal for forty?... Hello?”) and car hire and DJs and candlestick makers and almost every other trade in Yellow Pages. The Missus is in a happy haze of panic. Number One child answers desperate phone queries on exactly what bouquet arrangements she wants with “Whatever. You decide.” I merely sign off the deposits. But, in the late hours, when all is quiet and still, I furtively sit at the PC. Smiling. Planning. Crafting. After all, it’s traditional. Practically the law. My big contribution to the day. The Father of the Bride speech. Mwuuuuhahhhahahaha!
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Thats you when the missus is finished with you.
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