First, I think of wren, the passerine bird in the New World family Troglodytidae. My grandmother loved wrens before she fell off that truck. I’ve got to remember to drop the w, which is easy because Aunt Jean, my grandmother’s only daughter, had a Wilma Flintstone t-shirt, and she dropped my brother when he was little when she was tossing him in the air. Her hands were greasy from buttering the turkey.
R-E-N
Then, it’s de, as in Vasco da Gama, but with an e instead of an a. I did my world explorer report in the fourth grade on Vasco da Gama. That’s when my dad brought his girlfriend home to meet the rest of us. Mom knew her from the airport bar. She smelled like oven cleaner. She tried to say something about my report, but mostly I just hated her because my parents were still married. Plus the oven cleaner smell, which was basically just chemicals that made me think of pollution.
D-E
Then, z, the last letter of the alphabet, which is actually the first letter I start with when I’m saying the alphabet backwards while my ear doctor does his thing.
Z
Finally, vous, which is you in French, which makes me think of that time I was all set to go to France, but then backed out like the chicken shit I am because I was afraid I’d see my ex there with her French boyfriend, which is why I was going there in the first place–to get her back from that motherfucker–but then I thought that he might not be a skinny-legged French guy, but one of those French gangsters that people talk about at the airport bar. People who know. I remember vous because I looked in the mirror with my backpack on, a backpack full of long johns and comic books and some peanut butter for the crepes, and I said “vous a pussy” for not going, but then I still didn’t go. I couldn’t even give myself a proper pep talk.
V-O-U-S
R-E-N-D-E-Z-V-O-U-S: a meeting planned at a certain time and place. Also, a place where Indians and trappers got together and traded pelts for arrowheads.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I was looking on Al Gore’s internet for wrens. I saw the beautiful blue one on your page and came here expecting a birding site, and instead found out how to remember to spell one of the many many words I never can remember how to spell.
Love the site and thank you for the gorgeous bird picture.
HAHAHA! Love the way you brought all that together. Have you considered poetry or song writing? Maybe Short Stories? You have a clever wit, which I’d love to read more of.
Rod