The Story Behind My Nickname

In December 2013, on my previous and first blog, I participated in a blogging challenge run by the fabulous Kerri Sackville.  It was a weekly series of #MyFirst themed challenges.  On this occasion, the challenge was to write a post on #MyFirstBestie.

It occurred to me when I was recently updating my About page, that people who only know me from Write of the Middle would not have read the abovementioned post and therefore would not know the story behind my nickname of Min.  For this reason, I’ve decided to pull that post out of my old blog’s archives and cut and paste it here for your reading pleasure.  I do hope you enjoy the read!

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In late 1963/early 1964 two neighbours in a western suburb of Brisbane were pregnant at the same time and had become very good friends.  One of these women already had a son and was expecting her second child and the other (my mum) was expecting her first child.

My mother’s friend and neighbour had her baby first, in April 1964.  It was a girl.  I was then born in May – a daughter and first child for my Mum and Dad.

So my first bestie and I were friends before we were even born!  *KiKi and I played together since birth.  She grew to become a very tall, blonde haired, olive-skinned, long-legged, athletic girl.  I was a short, brown/auburn haired, fair-skinned, short-legged, arty farty girl.  Chalk and cheese, but our lives were intertwined from birth and to this day we care very deeply for each other and are like family.

When KiKi was little she had trouble pronouncing my name.  My real name is Marguerite.  She used to pronounce it as ‘Minimeat’.  It got shortened to Mini … and then just Min.  And that is how I got my nickname of Min which I am still called to this day!  I remember Kiki’s uncle, a really funny man, used to call me all kinds of variations … “Mini ha ha” … “Mini Minor” …  but ultimately as I got older, I became Min.

KiKi and I spent most of our childhood together.  Our childhood memories are full of each other.  Her mother and father are very special to me.  They were and are beautiful, kind and caring people.  They always made me feel welcome in their home.  They were always happy and fun.  Her grandmothers were also my grandmothers.  Kiki had two brothers – one younger and one older.  My parents had four more children after me.

KiKi and I were always having sleepovers at each other’s house.  They had a pool, so their house was always the more attractive option to me!  I remember the day that we freaked out when running out our back door and the gauze door slammed on the cat’s tail and the cat (‘Smokey’) screamed!  We ran and hid, afraid of getting in trouble.  I remember we used to sneak in to the old couples house that lived next door to KiKi and take lollies from their lolly jar.  I can’t believe we used to do that!!  That couple must have known what we were up to.  In fact, I think they had that lolly jar there just for us.  It was a clown’s head.  The hat on top of the clown’s head was the lid.

We used to spend ages working out dance routines and then put on a concert performance for our families.  We went to different schools.  I went to the local catholic primary school.  She went to the local state primary school.  For high school – I went to an all girls catholic college.  She went to an independent, non-denominational private girl’s college.  Though we each made other friendships from within our respective schools, our friendship never faltered.

These days we don’t see all that much of each other – maybe once, sometimes twice a year.  Though her parents moved many years ago to a nearby suburb, our mothers see each other every week.  They are in a quilting club together and are still very close friends.  This means I am always kept up to date with news of Kiki and her family which is great.  KiKi and I live on opposite sides of Brisbane and have different friend circles, but put us together and we pick up where we last left off.  There is a bond there that will never be broken.  We spent our childhood together.   So many happy childhood memories!!

I searched through my photo albums and am gutted to have not found the photo’s I had in mind to use with this post.  I realise now that they are still in the albums at Mum and Dad’s house.  I did however find a torn photograph (which I had to sticky tape back together) from when KiKi and I were at Kindy.  Yes – we went to the same Kindergarten.  In this photograph I am bawling my head off.  Why?  Well because I wasn’t allowed to be next to Kiki.  You see Kiki was very tall and I was very short.  The shorties were arranged sitting in the front and the tallies were standing at the back.  This was devastating stuff for me you understand!!  I mean how could they do that to me!  I wonder if that little boy to the left of me who is also howling was separated from his friend too??

Speaking of kindy, I remember that KiKi and I were always getting into trouble at rest time.  We always lay on stretchers next to each other and were more often than not moved apart because we talked too much.  Another vivid memory from that time at kindy was the old tram they had in the playground.  KiKi and I loved it.  There was a metal button shaped thing you stamped on near the driver’s seat that rang a bell.  Hugely exciting.  Hugely!!

KiKi is now a happily married mother of three children.  All her kids are now finished school like mine.

*I changed my first bestie’s name to protect her identity since she doesn’t know I have a blog and I didn’t tell her I was going to blog about her

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As an update, Kiki does now know that I have a blog, but she still doesn’t know that I have blogged about her (twice now)!  We got together three times last year – twice in relation to celebrating our 50th’s and a lovely girly lunch and movie at Southbank.  We saw each other just recently when she came to my house for a visit in the second week of the July school holidays.

Ciao for now,

Linking up with Essentially Jess for #IBOT