The Most Interesting Man in the World -- Chapter One

Chapter I. – In which the Origins of the Most Interesting Man in the World are Explained.

“The most interesting man in the world”, as legend has dubbed him, was interesting right from the very beginning – and this is the story of his beginnings. The place of his birth is not under any kind of dispute, for it was Plainview General Hospital in the eastern part of the state of Pennsylvania. I refer only to the state because the tiny town where he was born collectively decided – a few decades after his birth and on account of the town’s dangerously dwindling condition – to unite with two slightly larger nearby towns to form the small town of Tri-City. Thus it would be entirely incorrect of me to say that he was born in Tri-City, PA, because the fact of the matter is that he was not. The original name of the town was purged entirely from the records immediately after the fateful union on the advice of a notary public.
I say that the place of his birth is undisputed only to strengthen my next point – namely, that the date of his birth is almost impossible to pinpoint. For you see, our hero was born at the exact millisecond during which May 17 passed into May 18, 19--.* The nurse insisted on putting down “11:59 p.m. on May 17”, but as the doctor was looking at the clock (he had a habit of doing that right as he delivered babies), he remarked that it was quite interesting that the baby was born at midnight on the dot. This produced a sharp and heated shouting match between the nurse and the doctor, and I’m afraid the matter was never settled to anyone’s satisfaction. To this day there is no time of birth included on the birth certificate of the most interesting man in the world. However, it is lucky for us that they used typewriters back in those days, and they were thus able to type a 7 and an 8 in the exact same spot when they made up the date of birth. Thus, the most interesting man in the world, interestingly enough, is the only man I know of that was born on two days at once. It is a genuine shame that only reflects badly on the petty divisions of mankind that the loyal followers of this august personage have split up into two rival groups – the “Seventeeners” and the “Eighteeners”, depending on which side of the dispute they fall. The author has chosen to remain above that fray, but the reader may take any side he wishes to.
Of course, the most interesting man in the world has to have had a name, or else I would be stuck with the tedious task of typing out “the most interesting man in the world” whenever I refer to him. The nurse had hardly finished her shouting match with the doctor when, clipboard in hand and with a red flushed face that would have made her cute when angry only if she had been pretty, she turned to the parents and asked what the baby’s name was. This caused a second shouting match to break out, which the nurse and doctor watched with amazement and for which I shall now describe the reasons.
The baby’s father, Horatio Bates Warren, said most emphatically that the baby’s name should be Spartacus Byron Warren. It is a known fact that Mr. Warren was an avid connoisseur of ancient Greek and Roman history (a pursuit which was surpassed only by his undying devotion to Kirk Douglas as an actor – but strictly in that capacity and in no other) along with the poems of George Gordon, Lord Byron, the only poet he ever read. Thus the naming of the child was for him a simple matter – but no simpler than it was for his mother.
Mrs. Leona Nora Warren, nee Crabapple, stated just as emphatically despite her apparent weakness from childbirth (oh, but she was a strong woman!) that the baby’s name should be Ford Taurus Warren – but not for the reason you may be thinking. It is known from Mrs. Warren’s copious diaries that she had quite the crush on Henry Ford as a young girl; it is also known that Mrs. Warren was deep into astrology, and she knew that Taurus was the sign of the Zodiac under which little What’s-his-name was born. Mr. Warren knew it too, and he spent his part of the shouting match in trying to convince his wife of two things – that Mr. Ford was old enough to be her great-grandfather, and that both the Zodiac and Taurus were a bunch of bull.
Mrs. Warren’s end of the argument was no less strikingly cogent, for she contended that her husband’s choice of a name would scar the boy for life, that no one wanted to go through life with a stupid name like Spartacus, and that Byron would easily be confused for Brian, especially since she would likely refer to him only by his middle name. The doctor told me some years ago that he heard Mrs. Warren say something about Burt Lancaster being better at something, but in the heat of the moment he never deciphered what he was better at or than whom he was better.
The doctor justly deserves the fame assigned to him, for he was the one who settled this dispute. As is the case with truly great men, he never had glory for a goal – instead, he cleared his throat and, in an off-hand way, spoke up just as the spouses had run out of things to shout for the time being. He said something to the effect of, “Here, let’s make a compromise – name him Byron Merrill Warren! You both seem to think Byron is acceptable, and, well, I think Dr. Merrill should get some credit in this whole thing!” It wasn’t that Dr. Merrill always referred to himself in the third person (he has me to do that for him); rather, he was drawing attention to the fact that his suggested middle name was his own surname.
The husband and wife stared at Dr. Merrill for a moment, after which Mr. Warren put a larger distance between his hands and his wife’s throat and Mrs. Warren muttered something that sounded like “Oh, let’s just get it over with – I’m ready to go home” (I told you she was a strong woman!). Mr. Warren never uttered a word, but with a motion of his hand he signaled to the nurse to write. The nurse assumed that the doctor’s suggestion had been adopted, and thus the most interesting man in the world had a name – Byron Merrill Warren. It was only on the way home that Mrs. Warren realized that the boy’s initials would forever be BMW. Both the parents, being very much fond of appearances, were quite pleased with the discovery and were never known to shout at one another again.
Let me say one more word before I close this brief but important first chapter. As startlingly keen as Byron Warren’s powers of observation were, and as alarmingly retentive as his memory was proved to have been, he could only tell me one thing he remembered from the night of his birth – namely, that it must have been night, because the windows in the hospital were dark. But, humble man that he was, he was rather too quick to admit that the curtains may have been pulled, making the matter rather harder to discern that it would have otherwise been.

*Author’s Note: Some authors use the rather silly literary technique of writing 19-- when the do not want anybody to know what the actual year was. This is silly because in fiction such things really don’t matter. I use it here because I am writing in the 21st century and would like to let bygones be bygones.