You mean like the cow?
You see, after Elsie was born two weeks early and we called and surprised my parents with the news of her birth, we also caught my mother off guard with her name. Granted, we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl and so my mom had no heads up. But when we told her that her name was "Elizabeth Locksley Thompson" and we would call her Elsie, she responded with "You mean like the cow?" She was thinking of the Borden cow, an icon of her era, and since this occasion, we have teased my mom mercilessly as we are wont to do about her poor handling of surprises and her general uncoolness. This kind of teasing, of course, has a long history beginning in approximately 1974 when I learned to talk. The teasing happens when I remember being mortified by my clothes and thus my mother on various holidays as a young child, when I remember desiring invisibility when my mother alerted anyone to her existence when I was a teenager, and when I remember pouting on family vacations when my mother made me pose for pictures to remember the moment.

What made me think of these memories is, of course, this picture of Elsie pouting under a picture of the Borden cow that I made her pose for. I am certain this means that one day when Elsie calls me to say that she has given birth to a girl named "Paris" that I will very uncoolly reply "You mean like the Hilton sister?" an icon of my era. Let the teasing commence.