Say My Name!

Just a little shout out to my Breaking Bad friends - We're all in denial that this is our last week. Please take a moment to grieve.


Where were we? I've blogged before about how often people hear the stupidest things when I say my name.

(Note: I could link to that post, but it's really a lot of work and I don't wanna, so you can just use the search box down below to the right and search for Georgia.)

Georgia is usually the most popular (and I once had someone argue with me that I most definitely DID refer to myself as Georgia, which wasn't the least bit crazy at all of a conversation). My grandmother used to pronounce it Tree-sha, not unlike people from terrorist-challenged parts of the world, so now when I get a telemarketing call that starts with, "Hello, Tree-sha! How are you today, Tree-sha?" I usually find myself gasping, "Grandma?!?!?! Is that you calling from heaven????" right before I scream, "No, I don't want mortgage insurance so let my grandma cross over to the light and stop calling me!" When I worked at a Mexican food restaurant in college, the people who were Mexican called me Chu-Cha. To this day I'm still not really sure if that was just their way of pronouncing my awkward American name or if they'd nicknamed me after their elusive superstitious mystical demon, the Chupacabra. Either way, I get it.

I don't know why Trisha is such a hard name to hear, but I guess it's just not pleasing to the ear or doesn't roll off my tongue very well. I always get the indecisive "What do you like to be called?" (like that's supposed to be easier on either of us) and I think to myself, "Queen? Your Royal Highness? Bitch on High?" but usually answer with, "It doesn't really matter." I tried for years to just drop the 'A' at the end, thinking one less syllable HAS to make life so much easier for the idiots around me to adapt, thereby making MY life easier with their adapting. It didn't, so back went the A. Think of it as my own personal throwback attempt, like football uniforms or Mountain Dew bottles.

It makes me feel a tiny bit better knowing it's not just MY simple name that simple people have trouble saying. Jay has the same problem with his simple little name. Whenever either of us has to tell anyone his name, there's always that pause and then, "Is that spelled J-A-Y?" and I always want to say, "No. Just the letter J. He's real dope like that."

Not only is my name pretty easy to pronounce, my parents also took the lazy way out and spelled it phonetically rather than classically. My mom wanted to make it clear my name was NOT short for Patricia; it's a standalone entity with no chance for shortening to Pat (my dad's name) or Patty (as in Cow or Peppermint). Unfortunately, this only adds to the fog and makes people wonder what kind of weirdos my parents must have been to name me Trisha-without-a-C-not-short-for-Patricia. Tell someone there's no C in Trisha and all spelling hell breaks loose.

The part I find the funniest, though, is that of all the times in my life my name's been mispronounced, no matter how I say it, write it, or spell it, the only time someone EVER gets it correct is when I order from the Chinese food place near our house. They're like any other Chinese food place. They have someone answering who speaks machine gun quick, I'm not sure what he said, I'm not even 100% sure I called the right place (Did he say Weng's Restaurant or Chang's Dry Cleaning?), and by the time I hang up the phone, I'm not even certain if I placed an order for dinner or a bet on a horse. But every single time I order, I get there and he says to me with crystal clear clarity, "Hello, TRISHA! Here is your order TRISHA! Thank you very much, TRISHA! Have a good day, TRISHA!"

How is it possible that no other person on the face of the earth can hear 'Trisha' when I say my name, but the one person who *I* can't understand can? What kind of bizarre Twilight Zone turn of events is this? Why is God playing this crazy ass name game with me? I can only hope the next time my grandma calls from beyond offering to sell me mortgage insurance, I can ask her to ask Him for me. Hurry up, Grandma. Tree-sha is waiting.