Get Out & VOTE

Every year, I go through some variation on this:

The guy going down the polling list looks at my name on the list and sniffs, "You're Patricia."

"I'm Pat-TREETZ-ia," I say.

"You're Patricia."

"I'm Pat-TREETZ-ia."

This can go on for a long time.

Finally, this year, I snapped. "Yeah, it's an unusual name," I snarled. "DEAL WITH IT."

The guy at the polling desk clutched his heart. Silence fell in the polling room.

You know, so long as someone makes a good faith effort to pronounce my name, I am utterly cool. I get that it is outside the normative Anglo Saxon assonances and alliterations. Pa-TREE-zee-ya, Pa-TREE-ja, Pa-TREE-zey, even Patrice: All fine.

It's these people who want to tell me I've been misspelling my own name for 67 years that make me pissy: Look, lady, the 'c' key is only two away from the 'z' key. You're probably just a typo.

Fuck you!!