When Switters was less than a year old, his grandmother had stood before his highchair, her hands on her still glamorous hips. "You're starting to jabber like a damn disk jockey, " she said. "Pretty soon you'll be having a name for me, so I want to make this clear: you are not to insult me with one of those déclassé G words, like granny or grams or gramma or whatever, you understand; and if you ever call me nannie or nana or nonna--or moomaw or big mama or mawmaw--I'll bust your cute little chops. I'm aware that it's innate in the human infant to produce M sounds followed by soft vowels in response to maternalistic stimuli, so if you find it primally necessary to label me with something of that ilk, then let it be 'maestra.' Maestra. Okay? That's the feminine form of the Italian word for 'master' or 'teacher.' I don't know if I'll ever teach you anything worthwhile, and I sure as hell don't want to be anybody's master, but at least maestra has got some dignity. Try saying it."

Little more than a year later, when he was two, the child had marched up to his grandmother, pinned her with his already fierce, hypnotic green eyes, planted his hands on his hips, and commanded, "Call me Switters." Maestra had studied him for a while, had puzzled over his sudden identification with his none too illustrious surname, and finally nodded. "Very well," she said. "Fair enough."

--Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates by Tom Robbins