My Name is not Debbie

Unfortunately, Joan had to leave Paducah as a result of the local company she worked for being sold to a national chain. That meant her job as a computer programmer was no longer needed and since there were not many jobs for computer programmers in the area, she decided she had to move to North Carolina where there were more technical jobs and where she had relatives to help her relocate. That meant that I had more free time on my hands.

It was a typical Wednesday night in Paducah and I headed to a local lounge to listen to my favorite band in the area. When I entered the club, I headed for a chair at the bar in the back. Since I was a little tired of having a group of people crowd me when I sat down at a table, I decided to sit in an area and seat where I was somewhat isolated. I grabbed a vacant seat located near the end of the bar between a middle aged man who looked out of place, and an attractive young woman.

I sat there about ten minutes listening to the music and then the band decided to take a break. The guitar player Dave, hopped off the stage, cut across the dance floor and started heading towards me at the bar. There is a bond between guitar players and since I had played guitar in a band at one time, I always managed to befriend the guitar players in the local bands. Dave continued his walk toward me until he saw the woman next to me. He stopped abruptly, turned to her and said, “I’ll bet I can guess your name.”

The woman defiantly replied, “No you can’t.”

Dave proceeded to guess four or five names. Each time he guessed, the woman would reply with a curt “NO”. Dave decided he wasn’t getting anywhere so he turned to me and we chatted for several minutes. Then Dave headed for the waitress station to get a drink and then headed back to the stage.

As soon as Dave left, I turned to the woman and said, “I can tell you your name.”

Again she defiantly replied, “No you can’t.”

“It’s Debbie” I proclaimed.

“No it’s not,” came the reply.

“I’m never wrong, your name is Debbie!”

The woman was becoming annoyed and repeated, “No it’s not.”

I knew I was right so I challenged her. “Show me something with your name on it.”

The turned toward the bar, opened her purse and pulled out a check book. She opened it to a check, pushed it towards me and said “SEE.”

There on the check was printed the name “DEBORAH”.

I chuckled to myself and then asked her “What do your friends call you?”

She just glared at me, mumbled “Debbie” and turned away.

The woman’s reaction wasn’t unusual. I found that if you just told someone information about them and they didn’t know you, the person would react with anger, suspicion, denial, fear or distrust. The interesting thing is that there are people sitting in offices in Langley, VA or Washington, DC that have access to the same information on computers and people are not concerned at all. People are strange! Or as a country song puts it: “GOD is Great, Beer is good and people are crazy”! NEXT: What are The Crazies up to? And who is the man sitting next to me?