Introductions always warrant the same exchange:

“My name is Thea.”

“Thay-uh?”

“Tay-uh.”

“How do you spell that?”

“It’s spelled a little weird.  T-H-E-A.”

“Thee-uh?”

“Yeah, but it’s pronounced Tay-uh.”

“Oh… That’s a pretty name.”

To eliminate the inevitable mispronunciation, I don the pseudonym “Jane” to well-meaning baristas.

My name is a doozy here in a country where the letters T-H should sound more like a raspberry than a hard T.  I’ll generally correct you right away if I know we’ll have face time, but I’ve gone years not correcting people.  It’s a good filter for telemarketers and I can’t bear to correct a dentist whom I don’t see more than six months between a name butchering.

Then, there are the bold individuals who have no clue if they’re saying it correctly yet and give it their all.  The power of good customer service compels them.  The man who works the front desk at the gym pretends to know my name, even though it’s very clear that the screen displays my identity once my card is scanned.

He is programed to say hello.  He sees the spelling and his mouth wants to say something else because he senses it is different. He starts out friendly and strong, “Hi–” then the uncertainty takes over. The volume is affected–a defense mechanism–as if his body senses the impending mistake. His brain attempts to auto-correct itself, desperately going back and forth between the conflicting letter sequence, resulting in an unsuccessful cross breed of a name.

“Hi, Thaaaeh-aeh,” he says as if exhaling with an inebriated camel tongue too big for his mouth.  ”Have a good work out!”  Nice recovery, Chucko, but I hate working out.

“How’d you’re parents come up with the name?”

“They said they had boring names so they named me Thea.”

“It’s a very pretty name.”

“It’s a pretty name, yes, but it makes you have to be assertive.”

“Is it short for anything?”

“No.”

“It looks like it should be ‘Thee-uh’.”

“Yes.  Yes, it does.”