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(Partially from a comment elsewhere)
My dad grew up with unusual first and middle names, and he says he "wouldn't do that to a dog." So all three kids have names as plain as can be. I know multiple other Carol Jean Smiths.
When I arrived at MIT and was introducing myself around French House, in the hopes I could take up residence there, I got the response "Your middle name is Jean, right?" This boggled me, because it was and I hadn't said so. It seems CarolYN Jean Smith lived just downstairs. My sophomore year, my phone number was removed from the student directory as an "obvious duplication." I think it was also that year that CarolYN graduated, after untangling some kind of paperwork snafu with her "phase two writing requirement".
My senior year, I phoned up to ask whether any of the upper-division electrical engineering or computer science classes I'd taken had checked off my "phase two writing requirement", and I was informed that I had completed it in my sophomore year with some kind of paper on blood clotting. Suddenly I knew what had happened to CarolYN. I said "thank you" and hung up.
Even the Army sometimes couldn't figure it out, and they're pretty good at creating systems that will work no matter who's using them. A grizzled sergeant showed up, in a room of twenty or thirty people, asking for "Smith". We asked which one. He got annoyed, looked at his paperwork, and said "C. Smith." Cindy and I asked which one. He was seriously peeved by then. How do you make sergeant without knowing Smith is a common name?
If I go into some kind of business establishment and a clerkly type asks for my last name, I know not to bother going back. They're too stupid to earn my business.
It's kind of nifty being hard to Google. Photographs of a woman in a compromising position? Why no, that's not me. Nor am I the machinery shop, the music studio, the nineteenth century portrait artist, or the Illinois fishing resort. I wonder what happened to the basketball player. He used to be on the first page of Google hits too, but I didn't find him this time.
My dad grew up with unusual first and middle names, and he says he "wouldn't do that to a dog." So all three kids have names as plain as can be. I know multiple other Carol Jean Smiths.
When I arrived at MIT and was introducing myself around French House, in the hopes I could take up residence there, I got the response "Your middle name is Jean, right?" This boggled me, because it was and I hadn't said so. It seems CarolYN Jean Smith lived just downstairs. My sophomore year, my phone number was removed from the student directory as an "obvious duplication." I think it was also that year that CarolYN graduated, after untangling some kind of paperwork snafu with her "phase two writing requirement".
My senior year, I phoned up to ask whether any of the upper-division electrical engineering or computer science classes I'd taken had checked off my "phase two writing requirement", and I was informed that I had completed it in my sophomore year with some kind of paper on blood clotting. Suddenly I knew what had happened to CarolYN. I said "thank you" and hung up.
Even the Army sometimes couldn't figure it out, and they're pretty good at creating systems that will work no matter who's using them. A grizzled sergeant showed up, in a room of twenty or thirty people, asking for "Smith". We asked which one. He got annoyed, looked at his paperwork, and said "C. Smith." Cindy and I asked which one. He was seriously peeved by then. How do you make sergeant without knowing Smith is a common name?
If I go into some kind of business establishment and a clerkly type asks for my last name, I know not to bother going back. They're too stupid to earn my business.
It's kind of nifty being hard to Google. Photographs of a woman in a compromising position? Why no, that's not me. Nor am I the machinery shop, the music studio, the nineteenth century portrait artist, or the Illinois fishing resort. I wonder what happened to the basketball player. He used to be on the first page of Google hits too, but I didn't find him this time.
no subject
There was another Lisa Deutsch who haunted me all through school. She had the same eye doctor, we went to the same ballet school for a while. Same Jr High even!
That was the weirdest. I came back from Israel in 8th grade. So I needed a locker, not having had one assigned to me in 7th. It kept not coming, and frankly lugging around my books was getting old. Then I get a note to go to the Main Office. "Lisa Deutsch meet Lisa Deutsch." Seems the Other Lisa D was getting my locker assignment and kept refusing it, as she already had a locker.
A Lisa Deutsch was also married to Tony Curtis for a while.
And as near as I can tell, We Are Not related to each other, either.
Smith IS Common. Deutsch Not to much, but still, you think we could stop running into each other.
Luckily, I do seem to be the only Lisa Deutsch Harrigan, and even Lisa Harrigan isn't as common. Weird.