Growing up I never had enough social currency to gain stable traction with the popular kids in my class, but I did possess a sharp and advanced sense of humor that earned me a standing-room-only pass and an occasional guest-starring role in the compelling drama that was their lives.
With that said, I have no idea why I started calling you Fig, but the popular kids thought it was funny and you became the only kid in our class with a certified, school-wide nickname. Even the teachers were calling you Fig by the end of October. Now, over twenty years later, I can’t even recall your real name. It may have been Jeremy. Maybe Sean. Who knows, but it certainly had zero correlation with the fruit tree that’s native to Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region.
In fact, I never even ate a real fig until much later in life so it’s not like I was enamored with the damn things. I was almost thirty by the time a dried fig first made its way into my culinary universe, and even then I still couldn’t figure out why I called you that so many years before. Perhaps you loved Fig Newtons and ate them every day for the first few weeks of school. Perhaps I meant to call you a ‘fag’ and my Midwestern twang of an accent jumbled the pronunciation (although this is highly unlikely because Fag was not part of my normal vocabulary; I was a “homo” kind of dude).
Did you know that the edible fig is one of the first plants that was cultivated by humans, dating back to 9000 B.C.?
Now that I think of it Fig, we weren’t even really friends, which makes my nickname bestowment upon you even more perplexing. You came from the “other” elementary school that fed into our Junior High so we had no prior history or social context. You also had bright orange hair and I tend to be spooked by Gingers due to a negative babysitting incident involving a baseball bat and some Pop Tarts.
Truth be told, I always wanted a cool nickname. Not some homo nickname like “Fig” but something cool like “Turbo”. I even went so far as to start labeling my homework as “Turbo Brando” in seventh grade but that didn’t fly with the teachers. Sometimes I wonder if you still answer to Fig, Fig. Does your wife call you Fig? Does she refer to you as Fig during the throes of passion (ie. Fuck me, Fig! Do it harder Fig!)?
A 40-gram portion of dried figs produces a significant increase in plasma antioxidant capacity, by the way.
We drifted apart in high school and you presumably became whatever it is red-haired people do as adults. You’re not on Facebook, at least under the name Fig so I can’t e-stalk you, but hopefully you’re just as Figgy as ever, enjoying a wonderful Figgy life.
Yours,
Jose Brando
PS – I just remembered your real name is Ryan. Or Brian.
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