A customer has been waiting in line during a busy stretch at my convenience store. I am finally serving him.

Customer: “What’s your name?! I want to call corporate!”

Me: “It’s Aaron.”

Customer: “Erin?”

Me: “No, sir, Aaron.”

Customer: “Ron? Just say Ron! None of this extra crap! It’s worse than pronouns, I swear!”

Me: “Sir, my name is Aaron.”

Customer: “No, you’re Ron! Stop trying to be all fancy!”

Me: “Wait, sir. If I may ask, why are you going to call Corporate?”

Customer: “To complain about you, of course!”

Me: “Then, in that case, you can call me anything you like, sir.”

I have been going by my middle name for almost my entire life. For the purposes of this story, let’s say my name is Robert James Smith, and everyone calls me James. 

This has usually not been a problem as long as I have my ID. Over the past few years, I’ve become a frequent flyer. TSA has never raised an eyebrow if my boarding pass says “James Smith” or “R. James Smith”.

Until this time. 

When we finally get to the TSA agent, she eyeballs me, my photo ID, my boarding pass, and then me again, as usual. She starts to wave me through but then stops herself. 

Agent: “Hold on a moment.”

She walks off, whispers to another agent for a bit, and then returns. 

Agent: “So, unfortunately, we can’t let you board today.”

Me: “What? Why?”

Agent: “This isn’t your name. I can’t confirm that you’re the correct passenger.”

She points to the boarding pass, which lists “James Smith”.

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry. I go by my legal middle name, James. See, my photo ID says Robert James Smith.”

Agent: “It doesn’t matter. It may as well be a different name. You might as well be Joshua instead of James. You’re a completely different person.”

I don’t quite know how to respond to that given I look just like my photo ID, which has my full name, but I know better than to argue with a TSA agent.

Me: *Sighing* “Okay, how can I fix this?”

The agent looks surprised, as though she genuinely expected me to give up my flight and walk away. 

Agent: “I guess you’ll have to go back to the check-in counter and get them to reprint your boarding pass. Then just come find me when you’re done.”

I race back to my airline counter and explain the situation. 

Airline Employee: “Wait, what?! That’s ridiculous. Your name is right there on your ID. It looks like we just left off the first legal name.”

Me: “I know. James is my preferred name. I should have put my full name on the boarding pass, but this has never been a problem before.”

Airline Employee: “I’m honestly not sure how to fix this. Hang on.”

They end up having to call over another employee.

Airline Employee #2: “TSA is saying he can’t board because the name is wrong? That’s crazy. It’s not like the pass says Joshua and his ID says James.”

I couldn’t help but facepalm at that point. They spent another twenty minutes trying to figure out how to change my name in the system. At long last, they succeeded, and I thanked them and rushed back to security with my new pass. 

The first TSA agent was gone. When I got to the front of the line, the new agent barely glanced at my ID before waving me on.

I almost missed my flight, but I learned my lesson. And my spouse and I now joke, “You might as well be Joshua instead of James,” whenever one of us is confused.

Back in high school, over the summer, I’d spend a lot of time at my friend’s house. He had a little sister who was about three or four at the time. One day, whilst we were watching something on the computer, she came into the room, and [Friend] noticed a rather serious scratch on her arm.

Friend: “Whoa, hey, [Sister], how did you get that boo-boo?”

[Sister] replied in a sweet but serious voice.

Sister: “Satan scratched me!”

Friend & Me: “WHAT?!”

Sister: “Satan scratched me! See?!”

She repeated herself firmly, showing us her arm with the scratch.

Sister: “I don’t think he likes me…”

Me: “Uh, yeah…”

I looked at [Friend]. [Sister] was very young, and though his family was religious, they hadn’t introduced such concepts as Satan or the devil to her, so you can imagine how troubling her statements were.

We both started quickly firing off questions, testing her to see if it was a misunderstanding, but her answers either did little to calm us or, more concerningly, made things that much more sinister and worrying.

Me: “Did he say anything to you?”

Sister: “No, he doesn’t talk.”

Brother: “What does he look like?”

Sister: “He’s black, and, uh, small and he has yellow eyes… and nails! That’s what he scratched me with!”

After a few more questions, [Friend] asked:

Friend: “Have you seen him before?”

Sister: “Yes, but sometimes he’s there and sometimes he’s not. Sometimes he follows me around, but most of the time he just watches me.”

Yeah, that one actually genuinely shocked us both. Neither of us said anything for about ten seconds after that.

I mean, seriously, we were being told that a small, black, yellow-eyed “entity” that didn’t like [Sister] would come and go, sometimes following her around but mostly just watching her. And now, no longer content to just watch her, he had actively attacked her. And despite being unable to talk, he had somehow communicated to a three- or four-year-old little girl, that his name, of all possible names, was Satan. That gave the both of us pause. 

Concerned, suspicious, and slightly dumbfounded, [Friend] eventually got a bright idea.

Friend: “Can you show us where this happened?”

Without saying anything, [Sister] confidently led us through the house and into the garden and pointed at the fence. 

That’s when [Friend] figured it out.

The next-door neighbor’s new cat named “Satin”, after the fabric, had been the one to scratch her, and she just hadn’t learned the cat’s name properly.

We both collapsed into hysterical, deeply relieved laughter once we figured it out, and we went on to excitedly tell the rest of his family. Still, for a few moments there, it was quite sincerely like being in “The Exorcist”.

My parents were from Georgia and Florida respectively, and though I have never lived in the south, I did end up with a very mild southern accent, including the tendency to use words like “darling” and “honey” when talking to people. This includes at work, talking to my customers. Usually, it’s not a problem, though I have had some people ask me not to do it after the first time because it makes them uncomfortable or whatever, and that’s fine; I understand and don’t mind the adjustment.

This woman, apparently, was a slightly different story. I was helping her with a money order, and everything had gone perfectly normally — until the end, when I wished her a good day

Me: “All right, have a good day, darling.”

Her entire demeanor changed and she just glared at me.

Customer: “My name is [Customer], not ‘darling’. I do not appreciate those kinds of euphemisms. Is that clear?”

Now, I have no problem adjusting, but her sudden anger took me off guard, and the “Is this clear?” with a very condescending attitude irritated me. It took me a second to respond, so she felt the need to repeat herself.

Customer: “Is that clear?”

Me: “Yes, I’m sorry, ma’am.”

She just continued to glower at me.

Customer: “I think it’s incredibly disrespectful to use those phrases, and I will not be treated like that. Is that clear?”

I was already annoyed with this woman for a simple thing that I would have been happy to fix if she hadn’t gotten on her high horse, and I had already apologized, so I just kind of blinked at her.

Customer: “I said… is. That. Clear?”

Me: “Of course, miss. I’m sorry.”

She just stormed off, with a final comment that she was going to complain to my store manager about me.

I caught my manager later and let her know.

Me: “Hey, you might get a complaint because, apparently, one of my customers took great offense that I accidentally called her ‘darling’.”

My manager just snorted and shook her head.

Manager: “Are you serious?” 

I understand some people don’t care for it, especially since I live nowhere near the south so it’s uncommon to hear, but that reaction seemed a bit extreme. I have no problem adjusting, but don’t treat me like a child and lecture me because of a dialect phrase. I wonder how that woman would fare anywhere farther south where most people speak like this.

Back in the early 1990s, I got my first full-time job at a growing family-owned business. When I joined, there were about thirty employees, including the owner’s four children. On my first day, the owner welcomed me aboard, introduced himself as Chris T. Jones, and then introduced me to all the other employees, saving his family for last. 

Owner: “This is my oldest son, Chris P. Jones. And my middle son, Chris G. Jones. And my youngest son, Chris C. Jones, and my daughter, Christine Jones.” 

Me: “How am I supposed to keep all of that straight?”

Owner: *Chuckling* “You’re not — at least at first.” 

I still work at that same company, which now has over 100 employees. The owner is now retired, and his three sons did such a good job that they got recruited away by bigger companies. Christine now owns the company — and she even managed to keep it growing during the global nastiness. It’s a lot easier to keep track of the Joneses now.

I’ve changed the actual names involved, but the owner really did name his three sons after himself and his daughter the feminine version of his own name.