What's in a name?

True story. The guy on the other end of the Bell South welcome call wasn't too experienced yet. Or so I surmise. "What name do you want it under?" he asks, meaning my new phone listing. "What if I don't want it listed?" He quotes me the price. It costs extra if you don't want it listed--how perverse is that? "Do I have to use my real name?" This is where he departs from the script they gave him in tele-support 101. "No," he says hesitantly, "I guess not." I was home free! "Great--use my nom de plume Stanislaw Z.z.a." I had to spell it, of course. The proper way to pronounce Z.z.a is exactly like a pig snort. There aren't letters for it, really. I figured I could just tell people I was the last listing in the book. Which I became.

Unfortunately, the name attracted unwanted attention. There are apparently trolls around who call up people with foreign-sounding names and harass them. So I started getting messages on my answering machine from drunk-sounding rednecks who said that all Mexicans should go home. Yeah. Not very well-traveled ones I figure.

But that doesn't answer the Stanislaw part. That's easy--Stanislaw Lem is one of my very favorite authors. Go read The Cyberiad and see if you don't agree.