What’s My Name, Fool?

Driving back from one of Lindsay’s tournaments, we stopped at a Wendy’s attached to a gas station. We decided to make it a full break, so we all got out to use the restroom, order food, and so forth. We were the only people in line at Wendy’s, and I stepped up to the counter with Lauren just behind me. The girl doing the order-taking looked less than thrilled we were there. She was upper teens/early twenties, dark hair, dark eyes, and exasperation all over her face.

“If I get a Baconator Jr, can I get the pretzel bun?” Lauren said.

“No,” the girl said flatly.

This is objectively false.

“Are you sure?” Lauren said.

“Yes,” the girl said.

“I would think you could just . . .”

“Lauren,” I said and just shook my head.

“Fine, whatever,” she said.

I placed my order, Graham placed his, Lucia placed hers, and Lauren ordered her Baconator Jr. Then the girl looked at me.

“Could I get a name for the order?”

“It’s Gordon,” I said.

“What?” she said.

“Gordon.”

“Jordan. Okay.”

“No, Gordon.”

“It’s not Jordan?”

“Gordon. G-O-R-D-O-N.”

She rolled her eyes and tapped away at the register. “What was it again?”

“G-O-R-D-O-N.”

“Okay,” she said.

She tapped another button, printed out my receipt, and handed it to me. Here’s what it showed.

Lucia started laughing. “That’s the best version ever.”

“Version” because various Wendy’s have made me Gordan, Gordin, Gorden, and Grodin. That last version has led my children to call me “Gro,” then “Grodarious,” and finally “Grodarious Applebottom.” Wtf.

Most cases are innocent and probably the result of workers rushing to move me along and knock down the line. In this case, I wasn’t totally sure since we had personally offended this particular worker by showing up, then asking for a pretzel bun. Things got worse when, before heading to the restroom, I asked Lauren to grab ketchup. She misheard me and insisted to our favorite cashier that we hadn’t gotten a peppermint Frosty we had ordered. The girl insisted she had absolutely handed it to me. Lauren swore she hadn’t. The girl surrendered and gave her an additional Frosty. When I returned, sat down, and asked where the ketchup was, Lauren realized our confusion and felt obligated to apologize to the cashier.

“Maybe instead of apologizing you should tell her that she forgot to give you your pretzel bun,” said Lucia.

“Lu!” Lauren said.

“She definitely could have given you a pretzel bun. They’d kill us at Chick-Fil-A for not accommodating you like that.”

“I deserve the extra Frosty for the slaughter of my name anyway,” I said. “In fact, the whole universe owes me.”

That’s right. The whole universe. Because when I say my name to people, they act as though they have never heard it before, and please don’t ask them to write or spell it. I’m so used to it that I spell it for people after introducing myself: “My name is Gordon. G-O-R-D-O-N.” Which always catches employees off guard. “Sorry, what was that? How do you spell it again?”

And half the time, I can spell it thirty times and still have it come back as Gordan, Gorden, Gordin, Grodin, Gordun, or even Gorgon. Auto club AAA has had me as Gordan for twenty years. I can always tell when they’ve sold my address to another company.

In my last job, my boss’s assistant wrote to me once a week:

“Hi, Gordan. Vidur would like to schedule his 1:1 with you for Wednesday at 8:30 am. Does that work for you?”

Mind you, I had an email signature with the correct spelling, and that signature went with every email and every reply. No matter. Finally, after eighteen months, I wrote to her. “My name is Gordon. Two O’s. Do you mind correcting it? I normally wouldn’t say anything, but it’s been eighteen months.” Profuse apologies followed, which I felt mildly guilty about. Worse, in that job, I had Canadian clients who, without asking, took the liberty of calling me “Gord.” Yikes. I was never sure if that was a Canadian thing, but they were clients, so what was I supposed to do? Be a dick and tell them, “Could you call me by name, please?” The only worse shortening was the early era of our marriage when Lauren’s family called me “Gor.” Brutal.

I have never once met a Gordan, Gordin, Gorden, Gordun, Grodin, or Gorgon. I’ve never seen one in print connected to an actual person. Go ahead. Google “Gordan” and “Gordan v Gordon” is suggested as a search, and then basically every entry is about Gordon as a name. I did research Gordan as a name—apparently it’s a Slavic name, so if you want to meet some Gordans, you’d probably better head to Croatia or Serbia. That’s why the guy in this commercial became my hero forever and ever and ever. In various family group chats, I even changed my name to “GorDON” for a while.

Tubs of digital ink have been spilled on both the virtues and evils of automated ordering and checkout in restaurants and grocery stores. At a minimum, you’d think they could spell your name right since, you know, you’re the one entering it. But I was recently at Shake Shack where I ordered shakes on one of their iPad kiosks. And just look.

I mean, at least the second output is right. But who gave them permission to shorten me to “Gord”? I’ll bet I know who, and that’s why I stand with the parents of South Park Elementary and proudly yell, “Blame Canada!”