The first boy who ever tried to kiss me was named Billy Reuben. Who names their kid after a liver enzyme?  He sat in front of me in third grade.  Third grade was a traumatic year for all of us.  Our sweet, young, beautiful Miss Carmichael did the unthinkable.  She got married over Christmas vacation and did not come back.  Mrs. Wilson never had a chance.  I almost feel sorry for her now.

Any way, Billy Reuben tried to kiss me and being totally repulsed at the prospect, I resorted to name calling.   In an effort to save face, Billy replied, “You mean, I am mud spelled backwards?”  That’s what he said, mud spelled backwards.  I didn’t have a come back for that one.  All these years later, I can still see him slowing turning around and uttering some of the stupidest words ever said in the history of the English language, you mean I am mud spelled backwards.  He had no game.  He wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes in my house. That’s all I remember about Billy Reuben, other than his liver enzyme name, which didn’t even mean anything to me at the time.  That was way before I started preparing for my liver function test more than I did for my college entrance exams.

Then one day I go to take the GMAT. This is during the days when you dragged your sorry butt up from a late Friday night, made sure you had a number two pencil and you showed up. That’s all you did.  You showed up. It’s a competency test.  I casually looked over at the paper of the guy sitting next to me and whose name do you think I saw on top of that test?  You got it, Mr. liver enzyme himself, Billy Reuben.

ps.  all you literal types, I know Biliruben is not an enzyme.  It’s just fun to call it one.