Cool Story, Bro
July 3 · by Stuart
Hillsborough Street near the North Carolina State University campus
Man Gives Son "Cool" Middle Name,
Wife Less Than Thrilled
CARY, N.C. -- It's not often a person goes 18 years without knowing their middle name. But that is exactly the case for one Elwood Cool Spencer, a recent high school graduate from Cary, NC. “I couldn’t believe it,” says Elwood, valedictorian of his class. “The best day of my life just got 1000 times better.”
But not everyone is overjoyed at the recent news. “What kind of middle name is ‘Cool’?” shouts Judy Spencer, Elwood’s mother. You see, as it turns out, Mrs. Spencer had no idea of her son’s real middle name either. How does a thing like this happen, you ask? Let’s turn back the wheels of time.
When Elwood was born in June of 1994, his father, Frank Spencer, had a weighty decision before him. Mr. and Mrs. Spencer had apparently disagreed upon their child’s middle name for quite some time. “I already let him get away with ‘Elwood’. I wasn’t going to humiliate the poor boy any further,” remarks Mrs. Spencer. But his one and only son having the middle name “Cool” was incredibly important to Elwood’s dad. And so, as Judy lay in the hospital bed directly after the birth of their son, Mr. Spencer wrote “Elwood Cool Spencer” on the birth certificate, unbeknownst to his wife.
“It just had to be ‘Cool’,” says Frank Spencer, who defends his actions in an exclusive interview with Triangle Diaries. “What’s cooler than cool? ‘Cool’! I mean think of the possibilities, people! He can walk around with sunglasses on 24/7 and no one would ever question it. ‘Who’s that guy wearing sunglasses indoors at night?’ ‘Oh, that’s Elwood Cool.’ ‘Oh, that makes sense.’” Mr. Spencer sees nothing wrong with his decision to let his wife and son believe, that for Elwood’s life up to this point, his name was “Elwood Truman Spencer”.
So why now, with Elwood preparing to attend North Carolina State University, would Mr. Spencer choose to tell his son of his true middle name? “Man, I’ve been waiting for a long time, and it just seemed right. You’ve got to be cool in college, dude,” says Frank, an NC State alumnus himself. “I just want my boy to have all the opportunities I never did.”
Elwood seems elated at the news. “This is the greatest graduation present of all time! I wish I had known all my life so I could have been cool in high school!” he says. We are told by several sources that Elwood now wears sunglasses wherever he goes. “He wears them to sleep, he wears them in the shower,” says Mom. “I’m so mad right now I can’t even think straight. This is absurd.”
Frank Spencer calmly stares off into the distance, no doubt pondering his next great scheme. “My only regret is that I couldn’t give myself a cool middle name, like ‘He-Man’ or ‘Xtreme’.” Keep dreaming, Frank. Keep dreaming.