Amusements of the Common Man

And by “common man”, I mean the poor sap with the super common last name.

Before I got married the first time, I had one of those last names that no one could pronounce correctly the first time. It was a great measure by which to screen phone calls. When they asked for Ms. WRONGPRONUNCIATION, I immediately knew they were a solicitor and that Ms. RIGHTPRONUNCIATION had no time for them. It wasn’t one of those multi-syllabic Afrikaans names that even *looks* incomprehensible. It was a fairly straightforward German, one syllable name. One would think it would be NO problem.

I was a little excited at the prospect of having a name that any bonehead could pronounce correctly at first, but since I pulled the switcheroo to Ms. COMMONNAME, there have been a host of instances where this has bitten me on the ass, like when some hospital billed a child’s ear tube surgery to me, even though we were not related. There have been minor frustrations, like it takes forever to look me up in a database and differentiate me from the other million COMMONNAMES. There were the times I went to pick up prescriptions and nearly left with the medicine of some other person similarly cursed with the EXACT SAME NAME. Dime a dozen, I tell you.

There is one fairly amusing side effect of this predicament, and that is the amount of misdirected email I get to my very COMMONNAME at gmail.com. I get invited to random parties in other parts of the country. I’ve had my schedule for waiting tables at some kind of restaurant/bar three states away emailed to me, to which I replied “I quit!”.

This week, I’ve had not only the duty schedule for the emergency services of a county in Pennsylvania mailed to me TWICE, but two criminal profiles of folks for whom they are searching. I haven’t opened those. I gleaned enough from the preview to know that I DON’T WANT TO KNOW. For a good week or more last summer, I was cc’d on a family’s emails with their attorney regarding the refi of a piece of property they owned jointly.

I also routinely get membership information sent to me for websites where the person that signed up clearly typoed my very COMMONNAME in the email address for their registration. I’m looking at you, REI and Monster.com. Can you imagine the havoc I could have wreaked with access to someone’s Monster profile? A more nefarious person, or maybe a me with a few glasses of wine, may not be so nice next time. Also…Kaylee, your parents are not going to validate your registration and grant you “chat privileges” on that Disney site you signed up for because you sent the request to me, and I’m a total hardass.

By far, my favorite recent missend is this one. Names have been removed to protect the innocent.

XXXX =)


That’s pretty ballsy. I’m not sure I have ever declared my love for someone I didn’t know well enough to have their email address.
I wrote back and let them know they were barking up the wrong tree. I hope they found their guy.