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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Petter with two T's.

Peter's 11th birthday is fast approaching so I went to Lowe's Foods yesterday to order the cake.  And no, I don't feel the least bit bad about ordering a cake instead of making my own. 

I'm still reveling in the glory that was Peter's 5th birthday cake.  I know when I've peaked.  And not even Pinterest can make me feel guilty about buying a cake.  My kids don't care who makes it.  They just want cake!

A nice young girl, probably in her early 20's, took my order.  I gave her the size (2 layer, 8 inch round), and the flavor (white cake, white icing - it is a birthday cake after all!) and then we got to the decorating specifics.

"What would you like it to say?" she asked.

"Happy Birthday Peter," was my reply.

And then I watched as she wrote the following on the order form:

Happy Birthday Petter

And before I could correct her, she said, "You want the traditional spelling of Peter, right?"

I paused, confused. 

"Um, just one T in Peter." I was trying to be polite.  I didn't want to hurt her feelings and I was trying my best not to laugh because traditional spelling of Peter? 

When we named the kids one of my criteria was that their names would be easy to spell and they wouldn't have to spend any time correcting their names at school, at doctor's offices, on forms, etc.

So imagine my shock, at Sarah's one week visit to the pediatrician when the nurse asked, "Is that Sarah with or without an H"

"Damn!" I thought to myself. "Do people spell Sarah without an H?"

And I quickly learned that lots of people spell Sarah without an H.  I was extremely annoyed because with an H is Biblical after all. And now Sarah will spend the rest of her life saying, "That's Sarah with an H." 

And I've always had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, "Yes.  With an H.  The traditional way."

So when the girl at the bakery asked if we spelled Peter the traditional way, I was flummoxed. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt thinking that perhaps she just wrote it down wrong.

But then as we were going over the order at the end she said, "And that's Peter with ONE T (great emphasis was placed on ONE T) and she looked up at me and laugh as if I was the crazy one for spelling it with only one t.

I guess next year I'll just bake my own cake!

5 comments:

Madeline said...

I'm with you, I love traditional names. We had the darndest time at the hospital with Christopher. The hearing test lady just refused to spell it traditionally, I had to spell it 4 or 5 times for her. I am going to tell this story to my brother Peter, he'll get a kick out of it.

Billie Jo said...

Ha! Sooo cute!

When I took little baby Rhett to the eye doctor, all the people refused to call him by his name...

They just said, "Your baby" or "Him".

When we were checking out, I saw a copy of his chart, and they had put RHATT!!!!!!!!!!

Aimee said...

Oh my gosh, I'm just dying over the two "t"s variation of Peter. That is hilarious, and I don't know how you kept a straight face, especially at the end.

People have misspelled my name my entire life, and now it's just second nature to spell it for people. And if it's a situation where it doesn't matter how it's spelled (like waiting for an order or something), I just let people write A-m-y.

All my kids have traditional names, but my oldest goes exclusively by a very old-fashioned Scottish nickname for her name. It confuses the heck out of people and it bugs her but that's what her father wanted.

Kelli said...

I love this post...it made me laugh.

Busy Bee Suz said...

I never stress over buying a cake....my kids don't really care either.
Who spells Peter with two t's? Maybe in Europe???
And Sarah should always have an H at the end. Right?
I too can't stand the horrid ways people spell their kids names these days....I say out loud when I see them: Well, they will never be able to buy a key chain at Six Flags with THAT spelling. :)

BTW: my Lauren and Lindsay are both traditional spellings...I didn't feel the need to add any Y's or weird stuff. So, yeah, we are boring and awesome. LOL