What's In A Name?

Yesterday we ate at one of my favorite restaurants. You don't see it listed in the tourist guides. Its chefs never appear on the Food Network. It's not mentioned in the local foodie blogs. I guess I have pedestrian tastes. I'm talking about Subway.

The sandwiches at Subway are often created assembly-line style, like a Ford where one worker attaches the seats, and the next one hangs the doors, and no one worker follows the same product from start to finish. At Subway, I call these people Meat-Girl, Veggie-Girl and Money-Boy. The genders and roles vary.

Yesterday, the cute Meat-Girl was played by Katy, whose generous green eye-shadow matched the lettering on her Subway visor. She sliced open the bread and added the meat and no cheeese. She was cheery and giggly.

Veggie-Girl was played by Airelle, which is pronounced as if it was spelled Ariel. To my mind, she spells her name wrong. However, as my friend Bal has long pointed out to me, you can spell your name Smith and pronounce it Smythe. Or even Johnson. Who has the right to tell you how you pronounce your name? We've seen a lot of retail people with interesting names in Bend. Not nearly as many Courtneys, Ashleys and Britney/Brittanys as you find in California. Airelle was friendly, but not as giggly. She had a more serious demeanor. If Airelle and Katy were in a TV series, Airelle would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Katy would be her friend Willow.

My favorite sandwich is roast beef with lettuce, tomato, bell pepper, pepperoncini, vinegar and salt and pepper. I always ask for just a little pepperoncini, but some preparers only hear the ingredients, and nothing else you say. Often I ask for just a little pepperoncini and they inundate the sandwich with it. Veggie-Girl got it just right. You go, Veggie-Grrl!

When I was a kid, my Cousin Sandee was married to my Uncle Richard. They divorced when I was a teen. Richard was a cool guy, funny and friendly. He liked to ski, and fish, and tried to teach me these things, but being five and maybe a little slow, it was to no avail. I still don't ski, and I still don't fish. What am I doing in Central Oregon? Richard, like my dad, was an electronics engineer. He invented a device that protects equipment from electrical surges. After the divorce, though, I never saw him, which saddens me.

The funny thing is, it never occurred to me until this morning that there was anything wrong with calling him Uncle Richard. He wasn't my uncle, he was just married to my cousin Sandee. What's up with that? My friend Bal, being a fan of semantics, would say, "The map is not the territory." I just think names are strange.


Posted by Dave    Blog Tag: Chatter