Girls and Beetles

Girls And Beetles

My mother doesn’t make sense. For starters she named me Wolf.

“Its short for Wolfgang. Its classical! Mozart had that name.”

As if that explanation on its own would make up for the years of relentless teasing at school. It started with ‘Doggy’ in kindergarten and evolved from there over the years. Just one of the joys of having a name that is originally a noun. Had I had brothers they would have been called Van and Spike. Though it has been lonely being an only child, I am happy to have saved them from such torment. (“I never knew that having a child would be so expensive!” That was the same line I got from her every time I’d ask if there were a chance for me to have a sibling.)

I’d ask her what names she had picked out if I were a girl.

“A girl! None, I always knew I’d only have sons...well a son.”

“But how did you know you’d never have a girl?”

“Because I wouldn’t allow it. Now, off to school.”

“I’m back from school.”

“When do you go back again?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh, well I suppose you can stay the night.”

“I live here.”

“Then you can start on dinner. And be quiet, I’ll be in the next room contacting my aura so I need silence! I’ll get that stubborn fucker to change from orange to blue if its the last thing I do.”

I remember coming back from school, strutting down the street having just learnt in science that it’s the man that decides the sex of a baby, not the woman. However, when I got home I found her crying because another boyfriend had left her. (It’s not that she is incapable of having a long-term relationship, seven months is the longest so far, it’s just that, after a while with her, most men realise its better for them to go back to their wives.) So I thought I should leave my new found fact for another time and let her ring her ‘sorrow bells’ (her wind chimes in which the nice, high sounds will eventually pick her mood up with them. They usually take a few days and piss the dog off to no end but its better than the alternative: friends with make-shift drums and no need for sleep are invited over for a kick off. It escalates very quickly from there.)

You might be thinking that I should like having such a unique name as Wolfgang, but I resemble nothing of a wolf or a strong man who could take on a wolf. Even the dog doesn’t listen to me! I’m 14, 5′2, scrawny, very white, dark haired, asthmatic and I need huge glasses to see anything. I kind of look like Harry Potter if he were Gothic and afraid of the sun. Good thing is I don’t need a costume for Halloween, even though I’m not allowed to take part in anything that’s a part of Halloween as Mum doesn’t want me to get sucked into ‘Satan’s Annual Orgy.’ This coming from a woman who renamed herself Pixie-Loveboat because Delia seemed a little too close to the word devil. The only member of the family who doesn’t have a weird name is the dog, who’s called Dog. “Why would I call it anything other than what it is?” explains my mother. Like I said, she doesn’t make sense.