Monday, March 14, 2005

Identity Theft

I love those CITI CARD commercials. (One might assume that, since I have 2 CITI cards, I love the institution as well, but this is not the case. I'm just a sucker for credit card debt. That and ice cream - can't seem to say no to either.)

But I really love those identity theft commercials. For those who haven't seen them, I'll try to explain. The commercials open with some stereotype (tough guy, grandma, mom, etc) who is speaking in a voice that doesn't seem to belong to them, and they typically talk about expensive activities that you wouldn't expect them to be involved in. This is because the voice we hear actually belongs to the person who stole their identity and used their credit cards, leaving them in financial ruin while the aforementioned thief lives a grandiose, adventurous new life.

Now, for the record, I see NOTHING funny about identity theft. But the commercials are cute.

I gotta share this: I know a little something about new identities. Most of my life, I was Alecia. Alecia Kaye to my dad and grandparents. E-K to a cousin who had trouble with all three syllables. But Alecia was the standard term used to address me. Late in college, a friend of mine dubbed me A-Whit... as in the first letter of my first name and the first four letters of my last. This was after A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez the professional baseball player) and before J-Lo (Jennifer Lopez the booty icon). A-Whit really caught on and even my fiance calls me that. A-Whit. I like it. Fine.

Okay, so now that I live in New York, allow me to explain that neither Alecia nor A-Whit seem to work for my fellow employees. The Bangladeshis seem to have it down okay, but even the Americans have trouble remembering ALECIA vs ALICIA.

Correct: Alecia (uh-leesh-uh)
Incorrect: Alicia (ah-lee-see-ah)

Jose, the pastry chef at Sardi's, has been practicing for months and has made miraculous improvements. He finally realizes that my name is only 3 syllables, although he still needs to work on his pronounciation: now, instead of saying Alicia, he shouts "Hola Aleecha!" with the biggest proudest grin you've ever seen. I cringe, nod, and we work on the "sh" sound.

The French chef just plain doesn't try, constantly referring to me as "Kentucky" (pronounced ken-too-kee) which I find to be a cute nickname. State pride.


Two bilingual American guys refer to me as "whitey", "snowflake", and/or "wonderbread", which I find to be a bit on the hypocritical and not so politically correct side, but deal with.

Ever since getting engaged on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, an older Chinese man named Kim calls me “Star”. Now Kim is soft-spoken and shy, rarely speaks unless spoken to, but as soon as he catches sight of me, a big smile unfolds from under his thick mustache and he always bows his balding head a little bit and says, “Hello, Stah!"

My favorite nicknames, however, are from the Mexicans, Ecuadorians, Dominicans, and Columbians:

Carino: dear (pronounced ca-reen-yo)
Muneca: doll (moon-yay-ka)
Rubia: blonde (roo-bee-ah)
Preciosa: precious (pray-see-oh-sah)
Princesa: princess (preen-say-sah)

Juera: white chick (wear-ah)
Flaca: skinny (flah-kah)
Reina: queen (ray-een-ah)
Loca: crazy (low-kah)
Linda: pretty (leen-dah)

I pretty much answer to any thing that is shouted at me, (which could be cursing for all I'd know). The thing is, I just got my roommate April a job at Sardi's. Although they usually call her January, March, or May, I did overhear a kitchen guy refer to her as juera. I seethed. Identity theft really is the pits.

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