At Least Your Last Name's Not Fagerbakke

Over the course of my life, any time I've had a gripe about the way things were going or if I had things that I thought were unfair, my mom was always there to remind me that there are people out there who have it worse off than me. No matter what your problem is, there's always some poor S.O.B. out there whose wretched existence made yours look like a complimentary trip to a Bangkok whorehouse.

My mom's the undisputed master of this line of reasoning. No matter what happened when I was growing up, she always had some reason why I should be happy about it. Any time I took the guys to meet Mr. Bike Frame after riding my Huffy into a gopher hole or a curb or something, while I was on the ground in the fetal position, writhing in pain, she always reminded me that at least I didn't have spinal meningitis. I'm not kidding! Needless to say, that's not the kind of thing a guy wants to hear when he's just had his family jewels knocked back into his earlobes, so I spent a large portion of my childhood years sucking on a bar of Ivory soap.

But she never faltered. Your dog got hit by a car? That's a piece of cake compared to having cystic fibrosis. Pulled a 300 on the SATs? That'd make your day if you had hooks for hands. I don't know where she got half that shit. Every once in a while I'd catch her blatantly making something up, like the time in Jr. High when I got kicked in the nuts by a mule and she told me it was better than having Herkemer's Syndrome. I asked her what the hell that was and she just muttered something vague about having your bones itch and said I didn't want to know the details.

To be perfectly honest, I never really appreciated my mother's philosophy when I was growing up; actually I thought she was sick in the head. But now that I'm older I'm really starting to understand where she was coming from. It's taken me a long time to find my purpose in life, but now I think I've really found it. I'm here to remind people that no matter what kind of foul shit is going down in their own lives, hey, at least their last name isn't Fagerbakke.

You don't even have to know a thing about be, beyond my name, to know that I didn't have an easy time of it growing up. All my life, I've been like some kind of nickname magnet. You can try to surprise me with something new, but I'd advise you to save your breath, I promise I've heard them all: Froggerhockey, Fan-of-Balki, Faggotbacon, Fag-bot, Fuckerbacker, Fingerbecky, Shag-her-buddy, Fizzledick, Dr. Lousy Lay, Sir Fucksafreshman, Tommy Hatesajew, Dildo on Wheels, The Cunnilinguist, Tom the Racist Wonder, Tommy Comesponge, Mr. Nazi-cock, Tommy Two-Minutes, Tommy Knockmeup, The Back-door Bandit, Tom Thumbs-a-stranger, Tommy Inchworm… the list goes on and on. I'm sure I'm forgetting some good ones, too, you can email my mom if you want the complete list.

The point is, I got stuck with the Spruce Goose of bad last names. And for a long time I thought that was a curse, you know? But now I realize it's a blessing. Just like how Superman got super-powers and used them to help out humanity when it got in a pinch, Tom Fagerbakke got a super-shitty last name and he's going to use it to raise humanity's spirits. No matter who's pissing on your parade or what kind of crap life is trying to pull, all you have to do is stop and reflect on the fact that your last name isn't Fagerbakke, and that kind of puts it all in perspective. Sure, maybe your wife left you for your boss and your mom joined a cult and your son just got into Weird Al Yankovic, but you know, at least you're still doing pretty good in the last name department. So maybe everything isn't as bad as it seems, right? Feel better?

No need to thank me, it's the work I was born to do.

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