Oh! You mean JohnSEN

This is the best way to get the attention of my husband’s cousin Nicole. I had never noticed the myriad ways people will try to correct my adopted last name until she pointed it out. And man does she have some good stories to make her point. Having given up an unpronouncable last name for an unspellable one (apparently. But I don’t really think either of those things are true.) I suppose I should not have been surprised. But somehow I am.

This is the first in an occasional series.

I’m at PetCo where they think the best greeting for a customer carrying a 30 pound bucket of kitty litter is not “Hello” but “Do you have your PALS card?” Geeze! {lug}{thump} That’s the sound of me hefting the thing up on the inconveniently high countertop. {rustle, rustle} Me digging through my purse. {zip}{zip,zip} …looking through coat pockets… “Crap, sorry, no I don’t. Can you look it up by my name?” Big mistake. I know that now. “It’s JohnSEN, with an E.”
She types: J-O-H-N-S-O-N. “No, no with an E.” She types: J-O-H-N-S-O-N-E. “No, I’m sorry that’s (I spell it, slowly)” She types: J-O-H-N-S-E-N. She looks at the screen. Comprehension dawns. She turns and says to me as if English is not my first language and I’m a little hard of hearing, “Oh, you mean JohnSEN!” 

Yeah. Yeah I do. Silly me.