Bobby Goosey, "The Story of Tergiversator Alligator"

 

Bobby Lee Goosey

 

The Story of Tergiversator Alligator and How He Changed His Name

 

One fine day in the Okeechobee Swamp, where the sun sparked and glittered on the Spanish moss and slime, a teensy little alligator was born (hatched). His mama and papa thought they would call him Al. Al Alligator. Then they thought, no, they would call him Hal. Hal Alligator. Then they thought, no, they would call him Cal. Cal Alligator. They mused and pondered and argued things over, but they could not make up their minds. Mama said, “Okay, enough. We’ll just name him after his Uncle Ter.” Whose real name was Tergiversator. So they did, and that’s how he came to be called Tergiversator Alligator.

Tergiversator grew and he grew, and as he grew a certain problem developed. Tergiversator tergiversated. Must have had something to do with his name. Although Uncle Ter was never known to tergiversate. He (this nephew of Ter) would sit at the breakfast table, fidgeting and twisting and not eating—tergiversating—and his mama would say in exasperation: “Tergiversator! You must stop that infernal tergiversating!” Then he would go to school and sit at his desk—equivocating, fussing, fidgeting and twisting about—and his teacher would say in exasperation: “Ter, how many times have I told you? We just can’t have all that tergiversating in the classroom!”

Well, time passed, and Ter grew and he grew, and he grew and he grew, and, finally, he grew into a big twelve-foot gator. A daddy alligator. With a wife, Abigail Alligator and three sons: Al, Cal, and Hal. But through all those years Tergiversator could never stop tergiversating. He got a good job in computer-based sales, and he swam to work every day and he sat at his desk in his cubicle and all day long worked hard, absentmindedly tergiversating as he worked. His coworkers in general liked him, but they did not look kindly on tergiversation. They stared askance at his cubicle and tried not to notice how it quavered and fidgeted and shook. In their hearts of hearts they were thinking, “How unpleasant to work at an office where, in one particular cubicle, there’s all this tergiversation going on!”

One day, after working in that same business for twenty-three years, sitting tergiversating in his cubicle, gazing at his computer screen, Tergiversator suddenly wondered why he had never received a raise and promotion. He asked to see his boss, a big mama alligator named Maybelline Alligator, and Maybelline said, “I’m going to be honest with you, Ter, I’m giving you the pure God’s truth, I aim to please, I’m going to be frank: we just can’t have tergiversation in the upper echelons of our firm. Anyone, frankly, with your long history of tergiversation just has no upward mobility here. Sorry.” And Maybelline demoted Tergiversator to a lower position in the firm at a worse salary. And he had to move to a more lowly, tighter, skimpier cubicle.

But how can I help tergiversating? forlornly thought poor Ter, as he slowly wended his way home that day—fidgeting, fussing and equivocating as he swam—through the slime and scum of the noisome swamp waters. After all, I am Tergiversator, and a Tergiversator quite naturally tergiversates. Then a light flashed on in his mind: alls I gots to do is change my name, and my lifelong sufferings will end. If I’m not Tergiversator, then I won’t tergiversate! So, in a word, that’s just what he did. The next day he wended his way through the noisome swamp waters—fidgeting and quavering, tergiversating—to the offices of the civil courts, and there he legally changed his name. And with that his tergiversations were done!

Now he sits at his desk, in his cubicle at work, un-tergiversating, calmly working, gazing at his computer screen, un-tergiversating, and his coworkers no longer complain, and it is rumored that now, after twenty-five years on the job, he is due for a raise and promotion. And when he sits at home at the supper table after work, his wife Abigail and his three sons no longer complain; Abigail has stopped moaning, “Oh, Ter, will you please, please stop driving me crazy with all that tergiversation?”

But she doesn’t have to moan anymore, because the tergiversating is done, and she doesn’t call him Ter anymore, because he has a new name. Guess what his new name is. Right. Salivator. When thinking what he would rename himself, Tergiversator knew that this time he would not make the mistake his parents had made. He would pick a normal, everyday alligator name. Like he did for his own children, Al, Cal, and Hal. The swamps and bogs are full of alligators with those common names. He asked everyone to call him Sal, short for Salivator. So now the former Tergiversator Alligator is Salivator Alligator (Sal for short), and his only problem is that sometimes fellow alligators can’t keep him straight—since so many other Sals and Salivator Alligators are swimming the noisome Okeechobee Swamp.

The recently promoted Sal Alligator sits at his desk at his computer in his cubicle and he works, and salivates. And he sits at his supper table at home, dining on fried chicken, grits and cornbread, and he chomps and salivates. In other words, drools. And nobody says, “Salivator, please stop that infernal salivating,” the way they used to say, “Please stop that infernal tergiversating.” After all, salivation in an alligator—in other words, drooling—is something quite natural, acceptable. All the other alligators who swim in the noisome swamp waters perpetually salivate, not only the ones named Salivator. All his co-worker alligators at the firm sit in their cubicles, stare at their computer screens, and salivate. Quite acceptably. His wife Abigail salivates incessantly—not just when dining. In other words, she drools, as do his sons, Hal, Al, and Cal. All alligators drool.

So Salivator Alligator, the one who used to be Tergiversator, lives on and salivates his way through his life. And he will go on happily salivating away through the rest of his days in the lovely noisome swamp. But never, ever again will he tergiversate.

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[story from the book of miscellaneous balderdash, Bobby Goosey’s Compendium of Perfectly Sensible Nonsense]

April 21, 2024 (revised from an earlier draft written in the 1970s or 1980s)