What My Landlord Thinks my Name is and Why I Don’t
Correct Him
There is a short answer to this and
a long answer to this. For those of you who know me, you know I am not one for
short answers, but for those of you who don’t care to know me, I’ll give it to
you anyway.
This is the short answer:
Catherine, and because he pays my utilities and puts a roof over my head.
This is the long answer:
I live in a studio apartment over
my landlord’s garage on the same property as his own home. We share trashcans,
a driveway, and ivy cutting tools, and a plunger. To fully understand my
mindset, I must first inform the reader that this incorrect name-calling
business is not a one time occasion. Nor is it a permanent name change. My
landlord receives my huge rent check once a month with my full name on it. He
occasionally gets my mail and puts it in my box instead, and he emails me at my
personal email address with my full name included, whenever he needs someone to
watch his cat. I would also like to disclaim that I have no prejudice against
the name Catherine, in fact, on good days, I take it as a compliment. It was
the name of some pretty great people in history, although even as a history
major, I can’t quite remember who, it was the name of one of my best friends in
high school, a wonderful and caring person, and it is also the name of a cousin
whom I look freakishly similar to who lives in Connecticut .
Now, there are also days when this
bugs the hell out of me. I never forget his
name. He has the same name as my boyfriend, a close, but gross friend, and
two of my uncles. It is also the name of a star from a specific religious
suggestion, and a large part of the book, No
David! No! Not only does my name carry significance in every
American’s childhood via a much loved book about a spider (p.s. she dies at the
end), but for my generation, it is considered an “old-fashioned” and “unique”
name. It’s even making a come-back on the 2012 Epic Baby Name lists because it
is so out of style. Talk about hipster. I am awesome.
If anyone who wanted the short
answer but curiously read the long answer on accident is thinking, why don’t
you just correct him? then you are one of three things. You either do not have
a parent or close relative around the age of 45-90, you don’t personally know
the person who pays your water and electric bills (or you know them too well),
or you are just way ballsy-er than I am. I will explain.
As everyone knows, age is most
definitely NOT just a number. It is so much not a number that there are birthday
cards, both funny and polite, that specifically mark every decade that we are
alive. When babies are born simultaneously, if the mother takes too long to
recover between births, she is destined to have a middle child for life. As I
have personally witnessed, being the second born twin has the power to change a
lifetime. Not only is age a number, but down to the second, we can all agree
that age plays an incredibly significant part in our daily thoughts, feelings,
and decisions. For three years on high school and two in college I was called
Michael Jackson because I couldn’t seem to slip my little arms around someone
who wasn’t even a day older than me. the closest I ever got was two and a half
months, which didn’t really work out anyway. Let’s be honest, I was much too
mature for someone that much younger than me. I’m getting off track.
My point is this: I can not wait
for the life of me to get old and crochity, to be a rude mean old lady to
people I don’t like, and be sweet as a sunflower to people who bring me
chocolate. BUT, if my own father, who has always had a ridiculous and
inexplicable sense of humor about basically everything in life, is beginning to
have panic attacks about when his next AARP offer is going to come in the mail,
and how being alive for six decades makes paying a little less for the Sunday
matinee of Mission Impossible 4, an unbearable thought, and I can’t even make
jokes with him, then there is NO WAY IN HELL that I am going
to remind my landlord, a man with two grown children and a fly fishing hobby,
that he is slowly losing his mind and that he cannot remember what the C. in my
name stands for, when I live 55 feet from his back doorstep.
And that is why my name is Charlotte ,
but I do not correct my landlord when he calls me Catherine.
