Untenable

My mother never really had a firm grip on English and so when it came time to choose my name, just days after her and my father got off the boat in Los Angeles, her instinct on what would pass as a proper American given name failed her miserably as she uttered my name to the doctor: “Untenable.” Apparently neither the doctor nor the nurses attending her had any inclination to disabuse her of this choice. In my first years, this name didn’t affect me much. My parents didn’t speak English at home, and anyway they and everyone else in my family called me “Ten”. 

It wasn’t until I started elementary school that I started to suspect something was wrong. On that first day, I had never seen so many pink-faced, blue-eyed children in my life. It was as if I had gone to heaven, and now I was surrounded by a choir of golden-haired little angels. But this illusion was shattered the moment Ms. Jollenbach stumbled over my name during roll call. 

“Un... ten...able?” she asked hesitantly. Unaware that there was a problem, I raised my hand eagerly.

“What’s your name, sweetheart,” she asked me, smiling. “I believe there’s a mistake on this printout.” At this, the little angels in the room began giggling maliciously.

“Untenable,” I said proudly. This only seemed to encourage the children around me. “My name is Untenable,” I said again, my confidence deflating like a balloon with a tiny hole in it.