Oh, What's Your Name Again?

No, this post is not about my pet peeve (people who reintroduce themselves 1,000,0000 times, no matter how many times you meet).
This post is about the select group of people in America that have difficult names and must assume an alias at Starbucks. You know, the Tarkinsh'a(s) and Eglantine(s) of the world, the kind of name spell check never recognizes. Well instead of enduring the mass embarrassment of irritable morning coffee drinkers while they spell their name - they simply pick a new one!

My favorite story is one of my friend, we'll call her Dominicah. Each morning she chooses to go by Darla when ordering her venti specialty coffee. Well, one morning she's waiting for her coffee in the busy hustle of morning workers and the barista calls her name "DARLA, VENTI WHITE MOCHA." Like normal she grabs her cup and assumes her regular identity as she walks towards work. Halfway down the block she hears someone screaming "Darla, Darla!" Confused and concerned she just hijacked a drink she turns around to notice a boy running towards her. The boy introduces himself, says he sees her every morning and asks for Darla's number (very rom-com of him) ... when she gives it to him, she returns to her walk and realizes that this boy doesn't know her real name!
So, Dominicah is patiently waiting for this boy to call and is wondering how do you gracefully tell someone you just met that you lied about your name? You could continue using the alias if he was a dud, but what happens if he's your future bf? After a poll of friends and several exchanged flirtatious texts with him it was deemed too late to come clean and she chooses not to reveal her real identity. Besides, for her it was kind of a thrill to be incognito and reinvent herself simply because her name is chronically hard to spell and comprehend (and she just turned 25...I empathize it was a major identity crisis year for yours truly). So, my friend went on two dates with this guy under her alias, but of course it didn't work out after she was forced to jokingly confess, when he casually mentioned she was impossible to find on Facebook.
Oh, the shame of a name and the challenge of personalized drink orders at Starbucks makes for a failed place to pick up anyone. Just goes to show, the only good examples of an alias are writers that create new names because they are trying to write in a different gender and hope to avoid stereotyping -- and superheroes. 

People You Meet in a Starbucks...

In Ohio! I ventured home last week for my brother's graduation. My sister had class so she dropped me off in Starbucks to "hang out" so that means I got a chance to catch up on my writing and put this together for you, my dear readers :)
Now, I arrived at Starbucks at about 8am on a Thursday, which in NYC means the grumpy caffeine addicted work crowd- in Shaker it means time for the coffee house groups to meet.
Sitting near the only outlet in the place, a 60 year old man named Alex sits down next to me and asked me what I was writing. I told him I'm catching up on my blog. He says, "well join our coffeehouse group today - you'll for sure find a story"; and oh boy did I. Meet the characters:
Alex a married 60 year old from the west side of Cleveland
Franny the former judge added in an opinion on just about everything
Neal the son of one of Jimmy Hoffa's lawyers told us a story about his car getting blown up in his garage
Al the oldest of the group (with a very nice rose garden apparently)
And then there was Sharon...
Now, Sharon was interesting she looked me up and down several times and then began her line of questioning.
S: "Do you have a boyfriend?"
Me: "Yes"
S: "Does he tell you, you're pretty?"
Me: "Yes"
S: "Every day?"
Me: "uh...."
S: "He should tell you because trust me you can't be with an @$$*** for years and have children with him"
Me: "....Oh. Noted?"
What does one say to that?
Anyway, this caffeinated gossip group meets every morning before they venture off into their separate retired lives. Alex, the most loquacious, said he started the group just by sitting in Starbucks and asking different people what they were going to do that day. One by one, they each stayed to meet the others in the group and came back the next day for the "coffee talk". The day I listened in they paid their condolences to my generations (in terms of job opportunities), but noted that we still don't have it THAT bad, yet. Alex recalled a time in 1981-1983 when it was common to lose your job at least once during these years due to layoffs. He had to pay his girlfriend's rent for a while and he wasn't the only one in this situation. They laughed about columnist a little older than me comparing our hard times to theirs - they proclaimed,  "how could he possibly really know what it was like?" It's interesting to hear social commentary about a time when you weren't even a twinkle in your parent's eyes. Oh and of course I brought up Golden Girls and discovered my kindred spirits with the man named Al, who watches every night too (he confessed to me he thinks Betty White is hott).

So maybe it wasn't partying or celebrity-siting in New York, but I did get a little perk in my day! A Daily grind, where sipping is allowed, getting your drink extra hot and bringing the latest gossip is a requirement.