Friday, May 28, 2010

This One's For My Sister.

My little sister and I have always been close. She will even still, occasionally pick up the phone when I call. What can I say...you know someone loves you when they dodge your phone calls! It shows they really know you!
I was drawing a blank when trying to come up with an F Bomb Friday post to link up with my cyber sister MiMi, so I stole one from my real life sister. I thought it would be safe to say she wouldn't care. If she does, well, she can just continue to dodge my phone calls.


My sister's name is Brooks. Not Brooke. Not Brooklyn. BROOKS. As in Garth, or ...& Dunn. If I thought I had it rough in the past with my name, she had it that much worse. It's a family name, and when it is actually spelled correctly (if ever) it is mostly attributed to a man. Mail usually comes to a MR. Brooks _____. If people knew she was female, they automatically deamed her a "Brooke". It used to drive her crazy, and me by extension.


One summer, we went to Minnesota to go fishing with our grandparents. While there, we met a couple of girls, and became BFF's. Or, at least wrote letters to each other for about a week after we got home.


When we were introducing ourselves to these girls (who shall remain nameless, because I can't remember their names) they kept screwing up my sister's name. Each time we'd cringe, but I just made sure to enunciate her name every time I said it.


Finally, she had had enough. Very politely, she corrected one of the girls. "My name is NOT Brooke. It's Brooks." To which the girl replied. "Oh. I know. But I don't like that name, so I decided to call you Brooke instead."


What the?!?! Who died and made you the patron saint of name changes?!

We spent the rest of the time trying desperately to come up with alternate names to call them, to no avail.  What can I say?  I was 12, and hadn't quite reached my witty potential...

Now it's your turn to go link up.  Actually, since I'm really late in posting, you probably already have.  If not...go do it!  You're such a slacker!

6 comments:

Macey said...

Oh, niiiiiiice.
"Hey, girlie, I don't like your face, maybe I can change it for ya??" That's what I would've wanted to say.
My friend is married to a guy whose name is pronounced weird for how it's spelled and most people pronounce it...we always think that maybe she changed it when they got together and won't let anyone pronounce it right. She's like that, I would totally believe it.

Macey said...

Oh. And I think that Brooks is a cool name.
AND, when I first joing BMG, the cd club (remember that blast from the past?!) And I gave em my full name and the always sent my stuff to Mr. Mac E. Y
What?!

Myya said...

No one EVER pronounces my name right... for some reason they add an R Myra... huh? Where the heck did the R come from??? Once I got married forget it... now I have double vowels in both my first & last name. I'm screwed! I TOTALLY love the name Brooks. I like different names, I think they are fun & beautiful. Although, they ain't fun to deal with!

Rock, Paper, Scissors said...

I know how your sister feels. It is extremely irritating. And I am so lame I rarely correct people. In fact. I spent the entire last year having my daughter's preschool teacher (and eventually all the parents) calling me Cassandra. My name is much closer to Christina, but isn't. I also hate it when people call me Chris. If I wanted them to call me that why do I say, "Hi my name is chris****." Then, cause this always happens, they say, "oh that's too long I'll call you chris." Absolutely not. But CJ is fine. And my name isn't too long, it is the same syllables as christina, cassandra.

Rant rant rant. Now you've got me fired up.

Anonymous said...

I spell my name the French way. It's a boys name the way American's spell it. People rarely get it right. I give up, just don't call me late for dessert.

Brooks said...

I've got a name for each of those girls, but my mommy taught me better than to share them. Let's just say that they rhyme with "cat" and "breasy".

My favorite was all the misspelled names on the checks given to us for our wedding. Hmm... did you get an announcement? Our names were clearly spelled out on them...

Thanks for the blast from the past.