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I love coffee. In fact, my day doesn't start without it. I'm not a morning person, in fact, since I live at home I've instructed my parents to not talk to me in the morning because the conversation won't end well for anyone. Usually, I make coffee at home because I don't have the patience to wait until I leave my house and spend money, but also because I know that when I go to buy coffee the barista will most likely ask me what my name is. If my name was Sarah, Jane, or Katie maybe I wouldn't have this problem, but you see I have one of those names that our society has deemed "complicated".
For years I would freeze up every time a barista asked for my name because I knew that my actual name, Krithi would be too difficult for them, but I also couldn't ever think of any other name. The truth is, I've constantly had to deal with people either miss-pronouncing my name or not even trying to pronounce my name and breaking the awkward silence by either telling them my name or by saying "yeah that's me" after they've taken a long enough pause. While of course it's really frustrating to constantly live in a state of anxiety around my own name; a title that was given to me at birth for me to own for the rest of my life, I've both been waiting for times to change, but also constantly trying to find a way to avoid telling people my name.
Luckily, thanks to a wrong number phone call a few years ago, I've obtained a very valid, not-so-believable, Starbucks name.
It was a weekend night during my sophomore year of undergrad and I was feeling too lazy to leave my dorm that night because it was probably way too cold outside and freezing was not something I felt like doing. I was sitting in my room going through photos of an event I'd covered for the school newspaper, and my phone rang. I quickly looked to see who was calling, as it was unusual for someone to be calling me on a Saturday night, but I didn't recognize this particular number, so I hung up. To my surprise, my phone rang again and it was the same number. Being unsure if maybe someone I knew was trying to reach me, but also genuinely not wanting to pick up since I didn't know the number, I let the phone go to voicemail. This happened about three times until the person left a message. At this point I started to think that someone I knew got a new phone number and was trying to reach me, until I actually listened to the voicemail. I started listening to the message and I heard what sounded like a man's voice with a strong New York accent saying something along the lines of: "Nicole when am I going to see you again? Last night was so fun...". The funny thing is that my message machine clearly states that I'm not Nicole, and whoever Nicole is had probably gone to a bar and gave some most likely creepy guy a wrong number, which then happened to be mine. I hope whoever this guy with a wrong number is has either learned not to be creepy, or has found love somewhere out there in the world. But, as for me, this was the day that my Starbucks name was born.
Of course at this point in my life I'd gotten used to people giving me all kinds of names because they were unwilling to pronounce by actual name properly and have now been retaliating by randomly giving people who I find annoying a name that fits the reason why they annoying me. After being called Nicole however, I really felt like I had a name that wasn't a mispronunciation of my real name, but one that was entirely different, one that I could use to successfully fool people who had to believe me no matter what name I gave them. Of course, Nicole only works for Starbucks orders. In every other life situation I've had to undo years of shame around telling people what my name is, or letting them live in ignorance around its pronunciation.
For example, first day of school was always super stressful for me because I knew that with a new teacher came the task of trying to tell them how to pronounce my name correctly. For years, I never corrected anyone for miss-pronouncing my name, and have as a result learned to respond to anything that remotely sounds like it. I used to change the way I pronounce my own name depending on who I was introducing myself to just to see if I could somehow make the process a little less awkward. But for who was I doing this? Clearly not for myself. I know how my name is supposed to be pronounced I always have, so now I make people say it. And, maybe one day the barista at Starbucks will get it right too.
Inspiration for this piece came from the following sources:
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