By Any Other Name

Friday evening Holly, Tami and I were enjoying the evening and an adult beverage out on the patio at Skinner's. A gentleman of Holly's acquaintance named Kyle joined us. He was wearing a tshirt bearing an illustration of the laughing Buddha with a rooster. The caption was hilarious, mostly due to the fact that a word other than rooster was used. I laughed, perhaps even preceded the laugh with a bit of a snort. Which is part of my charm brought forth by the combination of surprise, amusement and having had a drink or two. This did not daunt Kyle one little bit. We talked about tattoos and he swiped my shot of Patron right out from under my nose and tossed it back! But he replaced it with another so I forgave him. As we continued to chat he asked what my name was. This is where it got interesting. I said Carla. Kyle sat back as a look of horror stole across his face. I know, I wasn't fond of my name as a child and for a while insisted that others call me Sally, my preferred name at the time. No one cooperated. But I had never been horrified by my name, merely a bit disgruntled over it. Turns out his ex-wife is also named Carla! This has never happened to me before! And she spells it the same way! Kyle shook it off quickly, though, and we had a most pleasant time. Unfortunately, Kyle's girlfriend was too drunk to join us. He was on the phone with her a couple of times and it seems she had enjoyed immoderately at home and would not be showing up. Hmm. A guy with a drunk girlfriend at home and an ex-wife with the same name as me. And I thought I had met all of the interesting men around here.