By Any Other Name

Because I won the Oh My Blog Award (thank you Robin!) I am going to tell you about my most humiliating moment. In a lifetime of humiliating moments, it was hard to pick one, but I've tried my best. I tried to balance great moment of happiness and triumph with crushing embarassment. That should do it, right?

In late 1992 I was ordering the wedding invitations for my marriage to Husband and was having some trouble with the wording. I had been married before, see, and I had not gone back to my maiden name after my divorce, mostly because I hated it like poison. My dad, an immigrant, had come to this country as Harry Burstein but had changed our last name to Burt. My twenty-six onerous years as Linda Burt (just say that ten times fast and you'll see what I mean) weighed heavily on me when I was getting divorced at twenty-nine. There was no way I was going back to that name. So I kept my ex-husband's name, Maric*.

So how to word the invitations? Linda Jayne Maric? Linda Burt Maric? I did the latter and everything moved forward.

The day of the wedding dawned. I got to the venue. Big sign outside: The Maric/Pressman wedding. I cringed. I could now see that when I kept my ex-husband's name I hadn't quite thought this thing through completely. Like to the next marriage day.

Then we got married. The chuppah. The Rabbi. The rings. Whew. I was officially Linda Pressman. That should be the end of that torment, right?

But then the Best Man stood up to make a toast. To the Marics, whom he thought were my family. Who, of course, were not there since they were my ex-husband's family. Would any woman want the ghost of Husbands Past brought up at the wedding of Husbands Present?

The Best Man's wife gave his coat a hard yank and said in a loud whisper, "Burt! Her family's name is Burt!" and he continued with the toast.

But still.

Have any humiliating moments you'd like to share? Excruciating moments at your wedding? Toast difficulties? Or would you just like to join in the chorus and laugh at me?

*ex-husband's name changed.

I'd like to pass the Oh My Blog award to the following bloggers, all of whom I think may have some fun with this one:

Maria at Mom of Three Seeks Sanity
Amber at Making the Moments Count
mommymommymommy at KISS - Keep It Simple Sister

The rules of the Award are:

1. Get really excited that you got the coolest award EVER!
2. Choose ONE of the following options of accepting the OMB award:
   (a) Get really drunk and blog for 15 minutes straight, or for as long as you can focus.
   (b) Write about your most embarrassing moment.
   (c) Write a “Soundtrack of your childhood” post.
   (d) Make your next blog a ‘vlog’/video blog. Basically, you’re talking to the camera about whatever.
   (e) Take a picture of yourself first thing in the morning, before you do anything else (hair, make up,
        etc) and post it.
3. Pass the award on to at least three, but preferably more, awesome bloggers as yourself.
    Don’t forget to tell them.