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What's In A Name?
June 19, 2005 | Category: In My Life
Pleasantville is this|close to Chicago and the residents are an eclectic mix; you got yuppies rehabbing the big old homes with granite countertops, you got working class folks in the small rows of brick bungalows with perfect postage-stamp lawns, you got every color, religion, sexual orientation.
So I keep expecting the town employees to reflect that.
Not so much.
Thursday I picked up Bear from his summer camp. This is a morning program being held at one of the fabulous parks. The teacher, "Miss Lilly May", is a frenzied middle-aged woman with frizzy hair and a big smile.
She was (finally) instituting security by having parents sign their children in and out.
She watched closely as I carefully signed my name next my husband's (who'd dropped Bear off).
Her brow scrunched.
She pursed her lips.
"Are you signing on the right line, dear?"
I tapped Bear's name and dragged my finger to mine down the dotted line.
"You didn't sign clearly, did you? I can't read your name."
I touched it up to make it clearer and the furrows in her brow became downright trenches. She began fishing through the registration cards.
"I thought Bear's last name was 'Daddy'?"
"Yes, and mine is 'Corporate Mommy'," I replied.
"Which?"
"Both."
"With a hyphen, you mean?"
"No. Like Mary Tyler Moore or Dick Van Dyke. My name is Elizabeth Corporate Mommy."
"Oh," she heaved a sigh. "So you're divorced."
"I'm married to Bear's father," I said.
"Then who is the man who drops Bear off in the mornings?"
"Bear's father."
"And who is your husband?"
"Bear's father."
"Then your name is Elizabeth Daddy?"
"No."
We stared at each other for a long moment, and I could tell that she didn't much appreciate me cracking her cosmic egg. Now, if only I'd been wearing my recently bedazzled women's libber t-shirt, then she'd have had fair warning. But ah, no.
"I need you to sign your legal name. For security pruposes," she told me.
"For security purposes? Are the police reviewing this register?"
"In case of emergency, we need to know if the parents picked up the children. Could you sign it 'Elizabeth Daddy' for me here?" she tapped the register where I had already written my name onto the dotted line.
"No. My legal name, my only name, is Elizabeth Corporate Mommy. It is on that registration card," I said, indicating the white card in her hands.
"They didn't ask you for identification when you signed up?"
"No, but my identification is in the name Elizabeth Corporate Mommy."
She huffed at me, clearly peeved. "Once you married, you have a legal name change whether you use it or not," she informed me. "It's security issue."
"Me signing a fake name would be a security issue," I told her.
She sighed again, and put the cards down. "Well, I'll talk to the Camp Director and see what he wants to do about it," she informed me with a bit of a snarl.
"You do that," I agreed.
Yeah, you do that, Lady.
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