The Dylon Saga

I’m a fan of pseudonyms. I really am.

I’m also not a fan of having my name misspelled, and quite frequently my name gets butchered when I go to Starbucks.

• Wendy
• Brittany
• Britney
• Whittney
• Whittni
• Witney
• Vitney (This is still my favorite)

Those are all ways I’ve had my name butchered. Whittni is clearly the worst. I did get a Whitley, and that made me far too happy to include it on the list.

At any rate, I wanted to start ordering coffee using a fake name. But I’m too shy to go for broke and order as Loki, so I reached back into my brain for a gender neutral name. Dylan. (Some of you will know why this name popped up. I was wearing plaid that day.)

Anyways, the first time I used it, I congratulated myself for picking an infallible name.

The barista looked up at me. “Is that Dylan with an a or an o?”

Dylon. She wanted to spell it Dylon. Which BTW is the name of a fabric dye brand, and is pronounce DYE-LON.

So I smiled. “With an a.”

Yesterday I went back to the same Starbucks, different barista. “Dylan,” I said.

She scrawled my name on my cup and took care of my payment.

The barista making the drinks looked at the cup, and then announced it by the drink instead of the name. (Iced soy chai latte w/ an extra pump of chai) So I turned my cup.

DYLON.

I weep for humanity.

(Equally weird, I heard Rob Thomas and Carlos Santana’s ‘Smooth’ on the Oldies station. I’m not sure what the heck was going on there, since last I heard the 80s were the most recent music they played)