My name is Paul Goldfinger, but I never liked my name much——until I was introduced to Bond, James Bond; then the name thing changed for me.
Scene: Quick Check, Rt. 33, Neptune. I am there on a Sunday morning getting coffee and approaching the counter to pay. A young man, high school age, curly red hair, awaits my arrival. He wears a Quick Check uniform, including a green apron and a name tag. He’s yawning.
Jospeh. November, 2019. Quick Check on Rt. 33, Neptune. Blogfinger photo © click once to read the tag.
Me: Rough night?
He: (Smiles)—out with my friends..
Me: Did you know that teenagers have sleep deprivation in the morning and should take their SAT’s in the afternoon? (I’m thinking, this is a good kid, working a Sunday morning job.)
He: I heard about that. (Just then I notice his name tag. It says, “Jospeh”)
Me: Is that your name, or did they misspell your name tag? (You never know with first names these days—Remember the movie “The Life of Pi?”)
He: They spelled it wrong.
Me: How do you pronounce your new name?
He: Jospeh
Me: Goodbye Jospeh. (I’m thinking why doesn’t he take off that silly name tag, or is he a kid with a brilliant sense of humor? I like to think the latter.)
Note: Original post 2017. I came back many months later (in 2018 and again on a Sunday morning in 2019) and found him at the register. He still wore the Jospeh name-tag. I asked him if he was going to change it. He smiled and shrugged, moving onto the next customer. He’s now a college student.
I thought, if I were still in high school, this kid would be my friend, and we all would call him Jospeh.
* “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” From Romeo and Juliet.
Here is a link to a funny 2012 Charles Layton piece about names, on Blogfinger:
https://blogfinger.net/2012/10/13/the-blogfinger-grammarian-whats-in-a-name/
DON AND JUAN:
Nov 2019 Update: I saw Joe at the Quickcheck recently and his name tag read …. “Jospeh”! No change – go figure? So many questions.
Years ago I was at a Dunkin Donuts and the Assistant Manager was helping me with my purchase. It is possible that English was not her first language. Before leaving, I suggested to her that her manager might want to fix her name tag. The title listed on the tag was “Ass. Mgr”. Some days later I noticed the tag was fixed.