in my family

Maggie: My maternal grandmother’s real name is Sandy, but all of the grandkids call her Maggie. When I was learning to talk, I couldn’t pronounce “grandma”—for some reason, it came out “Maggie”. The name stuck, and it was all because of me!

At camp: Synonymous in my/my moms/my dads vocabulary for “start of a story that no one except the teller understands”, and synonymous in my brother Ryan’s vocabulary with “best place ever and topic of 109230498723847 stories”. My brother is a little bit obsessed with his summer camp, and continuously tells stories about camp and makes references to camp. Whenever I hear “camp”, I tune out of the conversation—it’s bound to be a story about people I’ve never met.