I take my name and birthday very seriously.
Recently, I walked into Starbucks and ordered myself a tall cold brew. Little bit of room for some milk. When the barista asked me my name, I said the three syllables I’ve known all my life to mean me, this person inside this chubby little package wrapped up nice in silk and a trendy manicure, often in need of floss. I said my name with the same intonation, inflection, instinct I use every time. I said it with a soothing ease intended to reassure the listener that this brown person has a recognizable name of phonetic spelling, but also with the unique confidence of being the only Monica in the class, in the department, in the line.
“Oh my God. No,” the barista said in distress. “Is that really your name? Are you joking?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Monica isn’t your name, right? You aren’t serious,” she insisted.
“I’m sorry, I’m confused. My name is really Monica,” I said, showing her my credit card. “What’s wrong with that?”
She pointed to a crowd of about 35 people congregated by and around the bar. “You see all those people over there?” she asked me. “They’re all named Monica too.”
Candid Camera, I thought. Or some stupid meet up of people named Monica or who felt that their name should be Monica. I needed more information.
“You’re telling me that all those people, basically everyone in the store, is named Monica? All of them? Even the men?”
“Well, no,” she began to explain. “I don’t know what each of their names are, but one lady named Monica bought all of their drinks. So, all of the drinks are coming out as Monica,” she said. “That’s what I mean that they are all named Monica.”
I practiced writing “Monica” over and over and over and over and over as a child. My mother screamed “Monica” from the bottom of the stairs for years. I have a thick solid gold nameplate. The letters of my name are arranged in a fun little pattern on your keyboard. (I know you just tried it.) I’ve never had a nickname because I rejected “Mona,” “Mon,” and “Mo,” one person called me “Money” only a few times and dropped it, and I haven’t been able to convince anyone to call me “Big m,” despite a lifelong effort.
My immutable history led me to this very strange mo[1]ment.
“I never thought the very next person in line would also be a Monica,” the barista exclaimed the coincidence. “Do you want to give me another name? That way you know when your drink is really ready?”
“Big M,” I said, and I went to wait at the bar knowing with full clarity and soundness of mind that I would hear my name falsely many times.
For exactly 19 minutes, I stood between the pick up counter and an empty tabletop. I could have sat down and waited. I could have walked around and come back. I could have taken my phone out and written myself a text message that said, “MIND YOUR BUSINESS UNTIL THEY SAY ‘BIG M.’”
But I did none of those things.
Instead, every time I heard “Monica . . .,” I took 3 steps forward with my hand extended like a toddler reaching for something promised, only to realize it was not my order and back away 3 steps worth of shame. I did this cha-cha-cha exactly 31 times. Every time and in every sense, I knew it was not my order. More than 20 of those times, I saw that the drink to be handed to another “Monica,” was very clearly not a tall cold brew with a little room for some milk. Notwithstanding, each time, I could not stop myself from taking one step up and back for each syllable. Mon. Ic. A.
I annoyed myself. I knew better, but I couldn’t get a grip on my narcissism. I began to worry that I was blindly this way in other contexts.
And I am. I was right to worry because I am that way in other contexts. For example, long ago, I convinced myself that I have the single most common birthday. I personally know no fewer than 5 people who are my birthday buddies, and without any data concerning whether that is a normal number of familiar people with whom to share one’s birthday, I have repeatedly and loudly proclaimed that more people were born on my birthday than any other day of the year. By many multiples. Until the Everyone’s Name Is Monica Incident, I did not doubt this.
As I realized more and more of them, I grew troubled by the many other humiliating ways I struggle to see past my own nose against all logic, science, and principles of comity. The judgment I began passing on myself is that I should be able to hear my name without presuming that I am the subject of the sentiment, but I cannot do so. I should be able to reserve universal judgment based on my narrow, subjective experience and perspective, but I can’t do that either.
But then, like an excellent narcissist, I convinced myself I was right in the first instance. I didn’t take anyone else’s Starbucks order or deliberately provide a profoundly incorrect birthday data point. I didn’t hurt anyone by putting myself first in my own mind. I made no demands of anyone to put this Monica over another, or to make October 1 a national holiday. Rather, I am wandering this world trying to make sense of it from inside this one body and carrying utterly irrefutable knowledge of very few things, like my name and DOB. I’d rather overthink minor coincidences involving my name and birthday than be apathetic to how I fit into the world or what it is trying to tell me.
“Big m,” the barista called. “Big m . . . tall cold brew . . . . . . Is there a Big M waiting?”
No, there wasn’t.
[1] nica