May 17, 2017 Article

The Old Coot is a Honey?

By Merlin Lessler

It’s a full circle. Like a lot of things in life. When you’re a little kid, just graduated from toddlerhood, you become “Honey.” “Hello there Honey; aren’t you a big boy. How old are you?” At the end of the circle, when you are an old coot like me, an inkling of that former cuteness miraculously shows through and you are “Honey” again. “What can I get you, Honey?” – “Ok Honey, you can come in and see the doctor now.” Sometimes you’re Sweetie or Dearie, but it’s all the same thing.

How you are addressed changes as you go through life’s stages. You’re shocked when a change takes place, like when the kid down the block comes to your door selling Girl Scout cookies and calls you sir or madam for the first time. And, when you are no longer referred to as Jimmy, but as Mr. Robinson. It’s a long stretch, those Mister and sir years. Oh, you do get a Honey, now and then, but mostly in a diner, where the waitress brings you a mug of coffee, complains that her dogs are killing her and asks, “Are you ready to order, Honey?”

So, at present, I’m back in the Honey world. It’s been a long journey. And, I have to admit, it’s kind of nice to be Honey again. My trip to this place had a few detours along the way. I was “Butch” right after my first Honey stage. So much so, that when I entered kindergarten I didn’t know the teacher was talking to me when she said, “Now Merlin, we don’t push in line; you’ll get your turn.” (Merlin? I thought I was Butch.) I transitioned, but not with uniform success. Several of my grade school teachers assigned me to the girl’s side of the classroom when they were making up their seating charts prior to the start of a new school year, thinking Merlin was a variant of Marilyn. I remember when it happened in fifth grade. Miss White was quite put out when she discovered me on the girl’s side of the room and was forced to rework her chart. It was in alphabetical order, so when she inserted me in the middle of the boy’s side of the chart she had to cross off every name after “L” and rewrite them in the new order. We watched her do this at her desk and then get up with a disgusted sigh and order me and half the boys to our newly assigned seats.   

She got even; she kept right on calling me Marilyn. Every morning, when she took attendance and whenever she called on me to go to the board or to answer a question from my desk. The whole room snickered every time she did it. Finally, I’d had enough. The day she said, “Marilyn, come to the board and complete the multiplication of 356 times 2, 475 (or some such unwieldy arithmetic problem.” I stayed put at my desk. She asked again. I sat. Then, she walked over to me and yelled, “Marilyn. I said go to the board!” I looked to my left; I looked to my right, and back to her, and said, “Marilyn? Who’s Marilyn? Not me, I’m Merlin.” She grabbed me by the ear, in that special painful way that all teachers mastered back then, and marched me to the principal’s office, a place I was intimately familiar with. But, it was worth it. Marilyn was never called on in class again. I don’t have to worry about it anymore. I’m Honey now. (It’s better the second time around.)

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