In "I don't have to make this stuff up," Exploding toilets injure 2 federal workers.

We're moving very close to that building next year. Our building has recently been remodeled. I think that's a good thing.

I'm occasionally mistaken for Frank on the phone, and very rarely Bret. Nothing wrong with either name, but I'm a Fred. You know, like the second or third male lead in every forgettable movie from the '30s, as well as some memorable ones.

My last name is unusual enough that I automatically go to the spelling. And if I had a dollar for every time someone pronounced it wrong at first reading (it's a long "e," not a short one), I could probably put a down payment on Buffista Island. At least a starter island.

I often get mistaken for Erin or Helen. It peeves only minorly, except in the cases where someone has known me for years and still gets the name wrong. On first hearing, I give it a pass.

I don't give anyone a pass. I'm old and bitter and it's really easy to pronounce and I spelt it for you to boot.

The people I whip the pass back from most irritably are those that wrote it down themselves, without me spelling it. Yeah, you heard what I said (I mean, for those that don't promptly call me Rita or Edith), you transliterated it, yet you're reading back gibberish? That's all on you.

My sister's name, I give them more of a pass. But it's one letter longer, and people tend to confuse it more readily with existing names. It does kinda sound like it could be other stuff.

Thanks to Miss Jones, nowadays people tend to hear my name as my name. Growing up I was more often mistaken for Laura than not.

I don't have issues with my first name, because every third person my age is named it. But I do with my last name, where I say, "Yeah, just like it sounds." Then they laugh. Then I say, "I married into it, I knew what I was getting." Eight hundred times.

But with my maiden name it didn't matter if I said it and spelled it and freaking held their hand as they wrote it, they would still get it wrong. Even though it was very very simple. It was furrin and therefore confusing, before they even tried.

When I spell out my last name for people, even if I do it where I say one letter, wait for them to write that letter, and then I say the next letter, there are still a significant number of people who will decide to add extra letters. Always in the same place. I say "i," and they write "in" and look up to get the next letter. (Which is a g, but there's no n before the g. It's an ig, not an ing.)

who will decide to add extra letters. Always in the same place. I say "i," and they write "in" and look up to get the next letter. (Which is a g, but there's no n before the g. It's an ig, not an ing.)

I think people's brains are wired for pattern recognition and so they lunge ahead with what "sounds right" to them based on everything they've read/heard their whole lives. My father cannot EVER pronounce the drug Ambien properly, even though he's taken it for years. He always, every time, says "ambience." Not on purpose; that's just the word that got installed in his brain first, and it wins every time. (He does that with a LOT of words, actually. It frustrates me to no end, but I know it's not a deliberate thing. [That said, his inability to get some words right led to him telling a doctor he was allergic to a drug called "Bextrim." There is no such drug; there is Bextra and there is Bactrim. Bextra was an antiinflammatory that was pulled from the market in 2005. Bactrim is an antibiotic. Dad is allergic to Bactrim. The doctor heard Bextra, and because it's no longer on the market, assumed that it wouldn't be a problem for Dad, because there would be no way he would be prescribed it. Which is very true. So Dad took Bactrim and ended up in the hospital for almost 2 weeks because he had severe gastrointestinal bleeding. I lost my shit, mostly at Dad, because, as I said, I know he doesn't do it deliberately, but when he says drug names wrong, it could KILL HIM.])

I can never type the word "ratio" without putting an "n" on the end. Don't know why; I have no preference for rations over ratios, but apparently my typing fingers do.

I can never type the word "ratio" without putting an "n" on the end. Don't know why; I have no preference for rations over ratios, but apparently my typing fingers do.

I've lost count of how many times I have had to correct myself after declaring that a patient received 2 regiments of chemotherapy.

I was once in a doctor's office filling out paperwork for my mother. She's just about blind and pretty much deaf ... so there we are, and I'm going through the list of medications they had questions about, and some I could figure she wasn't on, but we came to MAOIs and she said she wasn't sure, what was it, what was it for ... all this conducted at a shout in a crowded waiting room. Luckily, she had a list - a LONG list - of what she WAS taking.