that's not my name.

   I remembered this really humorous story the other day that characterizes my childhood. I went back and forth deciding whether or not it would be Blog Worthy (aka: funny to anyone other than myself) and I have deemed it appropriate.

   When my family lived in Utah, my parents owned their own business. They had all sorts of products for biking, camping, and just outdoor hobbies in general. Because they were a smaller company, my parents turned to local job-seekers to sew the products from home instead of staffing. There was a little Asian woman that worked for them for quite a while (forgive me for not remembering her name) so my mom would haul my sister and I as well as the product to be sewed out to this woman’s house once in a while. I can vaguely remember what the house looks like, but I do remember she had two kids that were around my age.

   They all spoke in very broken English so, as a kid, I didn’t communicate with her kids that much. I’d smile and say “hi” and then they would say something in return but I couldn’t understand it so I’d just keep smiling. In retrospect, those were probably my first experiences with other ethnicities. Well it was Salt Lake City in the 90’s, give me a break.

   One day, the son handed my mom an invitation to his birthday party. He was a bit older than me so it was probably his 10^th or something. My mom asked my sister and I if we wanted to go and we whined the whole way home in the car about how we couldn’t understand them and their food smelled weird. My mom felt bad so she decided to at least get him a gift.

   The next time we took a delivery to their house, my mom presented the birthday boy with a big box. On top of the gift was a card.

   Quick break here. I don’t know about you all, but if you don’t know someone’s name or how to spell it, you probably refrain from writing anything on the envelope other than “Happy Birthday!”, right? I mean, I’d kind of rather just not have someone attempt to guess my name and how it’s spelled than butcher it. Is that weird? Well anyway…

   So my mom hands the kid his present and he has this weird look on his face. He looks up at my mom, almost pitifully, and simply says “my name is not knee”.

   …………………?

   Apparently my mom asked someone, or maybe just overheard, what the son’s name was. Even though the family is very obviously Asian and even though it’s pretty unusual to name your child after a part of the human anatomy, my mom still decided it was a good idea to write “To: Knee” on this kid’s birthday card.

   Turns out his name was “Ng”, which in my mom’s defense was indeed pronounced “Knee”. Ng? Really? It’s like their just asking for non-Asian people to be tormented.

   I will never forget that look on “Knee” ‘s face or the way my mom just kind of laughed and joked it off as if it wasn’t extremely embarrassing. For all of us.

   Basically I’ve learned to just stick with the ol’ “Happy Birthday!”. Better safe than sorry.

 

Explains a lot about me, don’t it.