Santa's Helper

      This weekend I volunteered at Holly Hall where my duties involved herding children into a line, asking them their names, and directing them to Santa's lap when their turn came. Even the simplest of Christmas elves should have been able to complete this task with little difficulty, but for some reason I encountered a complication. The problem was that I kept mishearing the kids' names, my worst slip up transformed "Brian" into "Maryan," as in a combination between "Mariah" and "Ryan." I don't think it was entirely my fault that I kept getting the names wrong, kids have a tendency to mumble or lisp, but I also could have realized that Maryan is not a name and that its close cousin Brian is a very common name. Most people probably would not attach much importance to this incident or try to read anything into it, but as an AP English student I can't help myself. I would like to think that the reason I blindly accepted the name Maryan is because I am so tolerant and accepting of diverse names. The less flattering explanation is that I simply have bad hearing, or a strange mental block when it comes to names, but I would like to think I have gained a new sensitivity to unique names after reading The Namesake. At the very least it may have desensitized me in regard to unusual names.

Some kids were pretty upset when Santa butchered their names because of my misinformation