What’s in a name?
I’m always correcting people when I first meet them. As it turns out, when I say “Ryan” people hear “Brian”. I don’t know if I have some odd speech impediment or what, but it always seems to happen. I’ve often sat in a quiet room saying my first name over and over, trying to figure out if I have some odd lisp that causes a slight “buh” to form at the beginning of my name. Please, if I say “Ryan” and it sounds like I’m saying “Brian”…let me know.
Now…while “Brian” and all derivatives (”Bryan”, “Brien”, etc) are understandable, I’m always being called far less understanding things. For instance, on Saturday I was called Rich Kennedy. While I do wish that I was indeed a rich Kennedy, my name is not Rich. Just yesterday I was called “Rick” during an IM session. I’m not sure what brought on this wave of getting my name wrong all at once.
Unfortunately, the story would end there if this was the worst name offense I’d ever experienced. For that we have to pay a visit to Rubio’s at Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara, CA. I checked my receipt after ordering (they put your name on it) and it said something along the lines of “ZYRQ”. I should have suspected something was up because the lady at the register had to ask me about 5 times for my name.
