I remember during my early days in grade school, it was common enough to be teased whenever my name was called out by the teacher during roll call. “Uy, San Pedro Street!” many would tease. And to younger minds, I guess that was funny enough.
I perceived right away that, for children getting to know each other for the first time, it was quite natural to make light of things, and that included making fun of names.
Perhaps a confidence boost of sorts to cover up insecurities in new environments, or so I thought. I even recall a classmate (or was it a bus-mate) whom everyone called ‘galvanized iron’ because his first name was Galvani. And in our days, we just laughed it all off.
As we grew older and moved on to more serious pursuits, it was my belief that we normally tend to outgrow such childish stuff and set it aside. In a sense, I liked to think the stream from where we drank from and got our quality of humor had also improved a bit.
However, I forget there’s still a child in all of us, so at times it’s back to square one.
One time at the grocery store, as I handed my senior ID to the cashier, quite by accident, it slipped, and she later gave it back. Before it reached the ground, the card was caught by the bagger beside her as Spider-Man would.
He glanced at it for a moment and smiled. He told me as-a-matter-of-factly, we were neighbors after all. When I asked, he showed me his ID, and true enough, his family name was the same as the adjacent street where my namesake was. Magallanes.
In many other instances, it’s amusing that I encounter a playback of the same thread. We must really be funny as a people. At least, that’s the only conclusion I could come up with.
During many conversations with the working man, drivers, waiters, and vendors, talking about how difficult it is nowadays is always injected with either a witty pun, a joke, or even an animated portrayal at best.
At this, I fondly remember Ka Freddie’s song, “Tawanan mo iyong problema (laugh at your problems),” and just sigh. By the way, we used to call him Freddy Agiw (cobwebs) during our days. Oh well.
