Chapter 131

I was cursed. Not by the evil witch of the mountains or some wizard living in a cave somewhere. I was cursed by my own parents. I am their first child. They named me after my mother's favorite cousin. What they either didn't know or didn't care about was that he hated his name.

He hated it for the same reason that I hate it. It is one of those names that when someone hears it they assume it is the name of a girl! I'm not a girl! My parents named me Melessa. Mom said that because it wasn't spelled with an I in the middle it wasn't a girl's name. She probably even believed it.

On the first day of high school I thought I had finally found a benefit to having the name. Each student was given a printed official program. It told each of us what classes we had and where we had each of our seven classes. I had gym third period. Girl's Gym. So, at the right time, I followed a crowd of girls into the girl's locker room. I found out that two things were immediately true. Number one, no one gets undressed in the girl's gym on the first day. Number two, you can be officially in the right place and still be wrong.

That was as close as I got to finding a benefit to having a girl's name.

Everything else about my name was negative. I couldn't get people to call me Mel. I think that was because whenever either of my parents used my name they used Melessa.

When I went in the service I discovered that most people don't use their first name. On the uniform you wear a name tag. It lists only your last name. I didn't have any trouble except at mail call. I finally bribed the guy who delivered the mail to call out "Peterson" instead of "Melessa Peterson."

I also discovered that people in the military get nicknames. Mine was easy and I liked it. My uniform said "PETERSON" on it. I became "Pete."

Most of my life got better. Once in a long while I would need to deal with the first name problem but for most of the time "Pete" was good enough.

When I travel I have problems with my name. Security at the airports looks at my boarding pass and becomes suspicious. They need to see picture identification and then they are still suspicious. I have often wondered if they think someone would pick a name like Melessa in order to be invisible.

Once, having the name stopped being a curse. Once. I was traveling back from Europe headed to California. It was winter. We landed at JFK in New York and the connecting flight, non-stop to Los Angeles, left me waiting at JFK for six hours. The storm that was arriving at JFK at the same time I did threatened to close JFK in a few hours. I changed flights and got a flight to Denver. The ticketing person assured me Denver was now behind the storm and everything would be great. I would connect in Denver for a flight to LAX. She booked my tickets and I was off.

Four hours bouncing through the storm later, I was in Denver. I had been told the truth and told a lie. Yes, the storm that was in New York had passed and was no longer in Denver. No, everything wasn't great.

A new storm was five miles out of Denver and all westbound flights had just been cancelled. Instead of being stuck in New York I was stuck in Denver. The airlines treated us, the passengers, well. They arranged for us to stay at nearby hotels for the night. They apologized for any inconvenience this might cause. They also said that because the hotel would be full they might need to double up some passengers.

We rode a bus to the hotels. Actually there were lots of busses. At the hotel we were told that passenger lists for flight 2250 had been sent ahead and rooms assigned. The desk person would call out our name and give us a key for our room. It was done alphabetically by last name. The only time they used a first name was when more than one passenger had the same last name. When they got to my name she said, "M. Peterson." I stepped forward and took the plastic key in a paper folder. Printed on the cover it said: "M. Peterson."

As I walked away from the desk another desk person announced that by showing our key in the dining room we would be able to have dinner on the airline. Many people went to the dining room. I took my bag up to my room and put my bag on the bed closest to the heat source in the room. The room had two queen sized beds so I figured I probably would get a roommate.

Downstairs, I joined lots of others in the dining room. Soon the people coming in were given a smaller and smaller menu because the kitchen was running out of some selections from the bigger menu. An announcement was made that all rooms with more than one bed would have both beds being used.

I was sitting at a table with three other passengers. One other man and two women. One of the women said, "Oh this could be exciting. Maybe I'll get a man for a roommate!"

The other woman said, "Don't be nutty, Carla. They'll assign rooms by gender."

I smiled and thought, "Yes, and they'll get our gender by looking at our names." My smile got bigger.

Carla caught my smile and said, "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"I'm a single man. I've been traveling for three weeks on business. I have been in at least ten different hotels and in every one of them what I've missed is someone to share the bed with. If they give me a woman roommate I will not complain."

"She'll have her own bed." The man at our table said.

I looked at him briefly and then back at Carla. "If you get assigned to a room with a man will you try to change rooms?"

"I don't think so. If he's good looking, I might order champagne from room service."

We finished our meals and left the dining room. There were new people waiting for our table. I thanked my tablemates for their conversation and headed for the gift shop. I bought a couple diet Cokes and a snack. I figured I could have them as I watched TV in my room. As I was leaving the gift shop the radio news announced that Denver airport was closed and did not anticipate reopening for forty-eight hours. I went back in the gift shop, bought three magazines, a six pack of diet Coke, and six bags of various snacks.

I slid the key into the door of my room and the light flashed green. I opened the door, wondering if I was still alone or if my roomie had arrived.

Carla was sitting on the other bed, shoes off, propped up on the bed with both her pillows. When she saw me she smiled and said, "Bette is gonna shit!"

"Bette is the other woman we had dinner with?" I was smiling and putting my bag of stuff on the table.

"Yes. When we got to her room she opened the door and was greeted by a woman in her eighties."

"I'm older than I look. Now that this is a reality do you want me to call the desk and see about a room transfer?"

"Too late. I looked in your suitcase. I know I shouldn't have but I'm naturally snoopy sometimes and I looked. I saw men's clothes, a man's shaving kit, and six condoms. I knew you were a man. I called and was told that we could not switch rooms unless we found others willing to do so. They were not going to be able to help."

"Ok. I'm certainly not going to complain. By the way, people call me Pete."

"Carla. On your luggage tag it says M. Peterson. I understand that lots of men named Peterson are called Pete. What does the "M" stand for?"

"A name I hate. I told her the story and then told her my name. She didn't smile, laugh or make some other comment. She said, "I like Pete. It suits you."