mistaken identity?

[cellio]

Yesterday I picked up the ringing phone to be met with "Is this Mrs. Cellio?" Now, that's a telemarketing tip-off as far as I'm concerned, as is "...Mrs. Zweig?", so I asked who was calling. Sometimes I respond to such things with "there's no such person"; this time I started to and at the same time she was saying my full name, so I let her talk to me.

It turned out to be someone from Ohr Somayach, an organization I support, so it was, I suppose, ok that she called me. It wasn't a cold-calling telemarketer, at least. (Or UJF -- same thing.)

But the whole thing did make me wonder about one tangential thing: am I "Mrs. Cellio"? I mean, I'm married, and I kept my original last name of "Cellio", but "Mrs. Cellio" usually implies a "Mr. Cellio", right? And there's no "Mr. Cellio" living here. I don't think of myself as either "Mrs. Cellio" or "Mrs. Zweig"; I mostly just avoid honorifics, and grudgingly cough up an ambiguous "Ms." if forced to specify something. I've done this since college; it's not recent. (Aha -- a reason to seek a PhD! :-) )

I wonder what my various friends with mixed last names do.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

For their time and place it was very feminist for my parents to have my mother hyphenate her name. (My parents would get incredibly pissed off to be called feminists, but IMO they are.) To this day, there are people who call my father Mr. My-mother's-hyphenated-last-name, which amuses him; that in turn boggles many of his friends, some of whom I suspect would beat their wives in rage if such a thing happened to them.

Meanwhile, I intend to be Ms. My-current-last-name all my life, because, well, that's me. My fiance has a 'weird' last name and I have a 'weird' first name anyway, so why should I make life harder for myself? :) Meanwhile, when people call for Mrs. My-current-last-name, if I'm feeling truly obnoxious, I tell them she's dead; she is my grandmother, and, well, she is dead.

A.