Archive for April 6th, 2022

aka Camille Minichino

Most of my readers have already heard many stories about what it’s like sometimes for a woman to have a different name from her lawfully wedded husband. You may have read an article I wrote on the topic that appeared in Ms. Magazine in 1996.

But here we are, more than 2 decades later, and the issues are still not resolved. Here’s the latest story.

My husband and I had adjacent appointments for our Booster shots at a local pharmacy, his at 10:20, mine 10:40. He signed in at the counter, got paperwork, and to make it easy for the staff, told the pharmacist “My wife is next and she’s right here.”
The woman looked at the schedule and said, “I’m sorry, we have someone else booked for that time.”
Time for me to step up. I had email proof that I should be on her list. There was no one else in the area, so I decided I could beat this other person to the shot. I swiped my phone to show my reminder email and pointed to my time and confirmation number. “See, I’m next.” I smiled through my mask.
She looked at the message and frowned. “Oh, that’s you,” she said. “A different name.” As if I should have warned her.
I wonder what would have happened if I had the earlier appointment? Would she have put my husband through the same process?

** Full disclosure: while I declined to change my name to my husband’s, I didn’t hesitate when my publisher required a new pseudonym for each series. And so I acquiesced to Margaret Grace, Ada Madison, Jean Flowers, and Elizabeth Logan.

“They’re fake,” I tell my friends.