WHAT’S in a name?
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Shakespeare’s Juliet would have us believe not much but then again that script did not go to plan for her either.
When my husband and I turned up to a gala dinner in the desert recently, we found out we had been put on separate tables.
A man in a dinner suit was shining a torch on a seating plan outside our marquee on account of a power outage and being down to two generators already.
“You’re on table 29,” he tells my husband.
“I’m assuming my wife is on 29 too then,” my husband says.
“Let’s see,” he says, “No, she is on 37.”
As we made our way inside and seen other couples seated together, we had to concede the arrangement came down to our different surnames.
At my table I met a couple of sociable single women in their 50s, one of whom offered to move tables to accommodate my husband with me.
“We have a nine-hour road trip back to Albury tomorrow,” I say.
“We probably shouldn’t spend dinner together too. Now, what are we drinking ladies?”
Two minutes after I had introduced myself to the lady on my right, she referred to me as “Kylie”.
I answered her question and gently reminded her my name was: “Jodie”.
Not five minutes passed before Lady on the Right politely asked me to pass the water, “please Kylie”.
“Of course,” I say, “but it’s still Jodie.”
We had an interesting discussion over entree about politics, Japanese food and balancing work and family, during which she twice more referred to me as “Kylie”.
For the third time I told her my name was actually “Jodie”.
“This is going to sound weird,” she says.
“Try me,” I say.
“I seem to have an insight into people’s spiritual names. Did your mum plan to call you Kylie and then change her mind?” she queries.
“Not that I know of,” I say, but as I’m feeling for her now, I offer: “Mum’s best friend called her daughter Kylie. Could that be it?”
We got through dinner without any more name-calling.
Afterwards Lady on the Right introduces me to the man sitting on her right: “This is Kylie.”
“No, it’s Jodie,” I say.
“But didn’t you just tell me your name was Kylie?” she says.
“Nooo-wah,” I say, but now I’m even beginning to doubt myself. (For the record I had one pre-dinner sparkling, one glass of wine with entree and only water since.)
After a quick scan around the room failed to spot my husband, I headed to the mobile loos at the back of the marquee. If it hadn’t been so freezing and on the nose I might have camped out there longer.
After the guest speaker and an auction, I finally got to brief my husband on my name-shame experience. I don’t want to name-names, yet his response might be a clue:
“Did you tell her: You're breaking my heart, You're shaking my confidence daily?”
After changing buses to get the early one back to town, my husband and I wound up on the same bus as Lady on the Right. As we alighted we both said goodbye to my new friend sitting up the front; she had stopped referring to me by any name at all.
With my husband following me down the bus stairs he couldn’t help himself: “Thanks driver. Now watch the step, Kylie!”
I couldn’t look back at the bus but I guessed she was thoroughly confused now.