My Family Name
written by Sarah Blodgett
I tell people all the time, ‘If you know my father, you will understand me.’ I’m not just talking about the physical resemblance, which I always denied. As a female, I never wanted to admit that a balding overweight man, with thick glasses and a mustache, looked like me. It wasn’t until my mother put my senior class yearbook picture on the wall next to the picture of my Dad on the cover of Business Digest, that I finally admitted the resemblance. The round face, the chubby cheeks; we were the same person.
People tend to stereotype me and assume I am just a dumb blonde. I can usually overcome that easily enough once people start talking to me.
But sometimes, I take very simple ideas or questions, and over think them to the point of confusion. I end up looking like a ditzy blonde. When this happens, people often think that I am playing dumb and they get frustrated. My Dad, while not a blonde, comes across the same way.
The thing is, my father is brilliant. He has two masters degrees, runs his own business, and yet he can’t make toast. Really. He made me some one morning when I was little and it made me cry. Now, I can make toast, a trait I inherited from my mother, but my father and I have the same scatterbrained quality.
Example: My Dad, Mom and I went to Applebee’s for dinner one night. The hostess told us there was a fifteen minute wait and asked my Dad, “Name?” My Dad stood there in totally confusion, for what seemed like an eternity, and then said, “Excuse me, what?”
Now, let me talk you through his thought process.
My father’s name is Gerry, not Jerry or Gary, but Gerry, and, for some reason, that always confuses people, so he didn’t want to give his first name. When he gives his last name at a place as casual as Applebee’s, they get frustrated because they have to ask for a spelling. Should he give his wife or daughter’s name, since they are so common? But he is a male. If he gives a female’s name, they will be confused. His mind locks up, so he just freezes. I jump in and leave my name, to avoid any more awkwardness. As a result of his overactive brain, he, as the most educated person in Applebee’s, has just made himself look like a total ditz.
In an attempt to make his child’s life easier, my father gave me a very simple common name, but that attempt fail miserably.
I have hated my name ever since I can remember.
My name is Sarah Katharine Blodgett. Now Sarah means princess, which, as an only child, I certainly was. “So what is there to complain about?” you ask. Well apparently the year I was born, everyone that had a baby girl decided to name her Sarah. I started Kindergarten with five other Sarahs in my class. Since there was another Sarah with a last name that began with a B, I was tapped to write my whole last name on my assignments. It may seem like a simple enough task, but it’s a very stressful endeavor for a 4-year-old. It was a lot more work than a princess should have to do.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, things got worse as I got older. No one ever spells my name right. “But it’s such an easy name,” you say. It is, but no one ever wants to put an H on the end of my name. It’s as if they start writing my name, get tired, and don’t finish it. “S-A-R-A…I’m tired.”
My father was no help. When I was little, he read me the children’s book version of Lady and the Tramp. I was so upset that I shared a name with the evil Aunt Sara. In an attempt to make me feel better, my father informed me that, since, in the book, Aunt Sara spelled her name without an H, only Saras without H’s were evil. “Sarahs with H’s on their names are good girls,” he tried to console me. Now I know that it’s not really true, but even now, whenever people don’t put an H on the end of my name, I stop and think, “Do they think I’m evil?”
All this is combined with my middle name, Katharine, which is my mother’s name. The name Katharine is innocent enough, but a little too innocent, if you ask me. It’s basically a nun’s name: Sister Sarah Katharine.
When I brought this fact to the attention of my father, he simply said, trying again to be helpful, “Honey, all good, little Irish Catholic girls are named Sarah Katharine.” This would be a great answer, except that we’re Polish. So, apparently the stereotypes are true – we’re not that smart. Especially since no one in my family can give me the origin of the name Blodgett. It apparently appeared out of nowhere, possibly from the same place my missing H’s end up.
Even with all his quirks, I wouldn’t trade my father for any other father in the world. My name on the other hand, that’s another story.
Sarah Blodgett is a comedian from Boston.
Visit myspace.com/sarahcomedy.