mister yu-hu-ri

I got on the phone this morning after discovering that one of my vendors -- you know, the people who bill me for services rendered -- has some sort of delusion involving my gender. This happens fairly frequently, about once every two months or so; my first name looks like a misspelling of a male russian name, and there are some people who simply take it on faith that if it sounds like a guy and looks like a guy, it must be a guy.

Thanks to the whole Cold War business, people always knew U.S.S.R. names better than they knew Japanese. Kids in school would tease me. "So how're the Russians today, Yuri?" they'd ask, or: "Fly me to the moon, Yuri!" Since our family's television consisted of a fuzzy, post-War production black and white static trap, and my primary interest in our newspaper subscription was the two page spread of comics, I never really knew who or what my classmates were talking about. Even then, though, I was pretty intelligent and picked up from cues that they were making fun of me: the holding hands and dancing around me in a circle was sort of a dead giveaway. Subtle people, my peers were not.

As a sort of defense mechanism, I started reading the Oxford dictionary at the age of five. "Good idea," you're probably thinking. "The dictionary's pretty heavy. One good blow over the head with that and pretty much anybody'll stop teasing you." Yes, well, this was my theory too. What actually happened, however, is that I learned all the other things they could have done with my name; I learned to be grateful that the best my classmates could come up with was "Mister Communist Evil President Poop Head," which wasn't even remotely satisfying in the way it rolled off the tongue; even they seemed to feel it, because there was a definite lack of conviction in the chant, and it usually dissolved fairly quickly so they could dance around some other poor kid and yell, "Lard Butt, Lard Butt."

There was an additional benefit to reading the dictionary, in that I learned all these gorgeous, stilettoed, acid words that I could use in my own defense. My tongue became the byword of every school I was in; I could peel the skin off a boy from twenty paces, flay him to the bone, then chip away layers of calcification to get to the marrow inside. There was no opposition. Public school isn't the stuff of which biting wit is created. I had the advantage over my schoolmates of knowing how to read. Plus, I had that whole "Hatred of Humanity, that Pus-Filled Sore on the Face of the Earth" thing going for me.

That's not to say I didn't get anything out of my public education experience, mind you. I picked up tidbits of information here and there. I distinctly remember having this conversation with a girl named Lynn in Mister Peterson's third grade class.

"lada lada lada something something rape something something," she said.

"Rape?" I echoed, puzzled. "What's that?"

She looked at me strangely. "That's how people have babies, stupid."

I hadn't reached the Rs in the dictionary yet.

Then there was the time in high school outside of Mrs. Moran's German classroom, where a group of my friends were gathered waiting for the teacher to show up. Someone handed me a Christmas card to laugh at. It featured Santa Claus' back, wearing his fuzzy red-and-white top and a pair of bloomers around his ankles. "HO HO HO," it said. Inside, the card read, "Santa always says that when he's coming."

Everybody laughed. I remained bemused. "I don't get it," I said.

"Turn it over," someone suggested. "OH OH OH." They laughed again.

I turned it over. Now Santa was on his head. Sure enough, it read OH OH OH. "I still don't get it," I announced.

"Santa always says that when he's coming, see?" somebody insisted, and nudged me with a knowing wink and leer.

"Okay," I said agreeably, puzzled but game.

My class stared at me. "You don't get it?" they demanded. "Why don't you get it? Coming, see? He's . . . you know. Coming."

"Down the chimney?" I wanted to know.

"Didn't you take sex ed?" they asked, harassed.

"Huh?"

Despite all their big show and talk to the contrary, it turns out that high school students are actually an extremely modest group of people. Faced with the challenge of providing me with sex ed in the ten minutes before class started, they proved woefully inadequate to the job. There was much blushing, and stammering, and peculiar nudges and winks, and some half-hearted gestures with fingers, and plenty of, "You do it. C'mon. You're supposed to be the expert." Our teacher eventually popped up in our midst to rescue them; I was left with the dim impression that the joke meant that Santa was heading to the bedroom to meet Mrs. Claus so that they could put Santa's boxers back on because he was too fat to put them on himself.

Even translated, it wasn't a very funny card. Like I said, public school didn't furnish the average high schooler with a sophisticated or understandable sense of humor.

Anyway, the whole point to this rambling story is that once in a while, back before I lost track of the thread, my name is still associated with masculinity. Hence, bills that are addressed to "Mr Yuri Hirata," or better still, "Mr Yhuri Hirata." There are at least a dozen different ways to misspell my name. I've seen: Yhuri, Yurhi, Yuri, Urhi, Uri, Uhri, Yurih, Yeuri, Yuhuri, Yuruhi, Yurrhi, Yuhhri. There are probably more, but these are the ones that I remember, in order of frequency. It's not a big deal, but every so often I feel some masochistic urge to call the company up and correct their misapprehension.

Usually, this is fairly easy. Most companies are willing to make the small change, especially since I'm paying them money for stuff.

And then there are conversations like the one I had this morning.

Mornings aren't a good time for me; I'm slow to wake up, dislike sunlight, and sound like I have a bad cold until I start getting interested in something or, on boring days, until the clock revolves back around to the single digits again. Today was especially bad. My normal speaking voice is in an alto/mezzo range. This morning I was holding steady at bass-baritone.

Customer Service: Hellothankyouforcalling[deleted]thisisYavondahowmanyIhelpyoutoday?

Me: What?

Customer Service: Hellothankyouforcalling[deleted]thisisYavondahowmanyIhelpyoutoday?

Me: Uh...sorry. Hello?

CS: Hello?

Me: This is a real person, right?

CS: Yes.

Me: Oh, good. Sorry. Just . . . morning, you know. I wanted to change the name on my account.

CS: I can do that for you if you like. May I have your account number, please?

Me: Oh, sure. (I provide account number.)

CS: Just a moment please.

Me: (wait, wait, wait, wait, wait).

CS: Okay, sir. This account is listed under Mister. . .uh, Yu. . . Yu-hu-ri. . ."

Me: Yuhri. Yuuuuri. Hirata.

CS: Thank you. That's a pretty name. Is it Russian?

Me: No, it's Japanese.

CS: Really? I read somewhere that the Russians mixed with the Japanese but I didn't know that they'd shared names and all that.

Me: They didn't, actually.

CS: Oh?

Me: Yes, it's a Japanese name meaning Homeland. Or, spelled slightly differently, Lily.

CS: Oh.

Me: And it's Miss Hirata. Not Mister.

CS: What?

Me: Miss Hirata. Female. I'm female.

CS: Are you sure?

Me: I'm . . . pretty sure, yes. I mean, last I checked.

CS: When was the last time you checked?

Me: Um, last night.

CS: Oh. I suppose it couldn't have changed since then, could it?

Me: Not really.

CS: Wow. Your voice is deep.

Me: Yeah. It's morning.

CS: I mean, I thought you were a guy.

Me: Thank you.

CS: Don't mention it.

Me: I won't.

CS: Okay. That shouldn't really be a problem.

Me: Cool.

CS: But first . . . are you absolutely sure? Because I've never heard that name being with a woman.

Me: Yes. I mean, I"m sure.

CS: I know about the Russians, like, Yuri Andoropov and that astronaut guy. . .

Me: I know, I know. But it's also a girl's name. At least, in Japan it's a girl's name.

CS: That's really interesting. I mean, that the name could be for two different sexes in two different countries. What are the odds?

Me: Thank you.

CS: It means Lily?

Me: Homeland.

CS: Wow. That's so totally deep.

Me: Thank you?

CS: Is this spelled right, here? Y-h-u-r-i?

Me: No, that's the other thing. It should be spelled with the 'H' in the middle.

CS: Y-H-U-H-R-I?

Me: No. Take out the first H. Y-U-H-R-I.

CS: Y-H-U-H-R-I?

Me: Y-U-H-R-I.

CS: Which H do I take out?

Me: The first one. Take out the first one.

CS: Yu-hu-ri?

Me: Yuhri. You don't aspirate the H.

CS: Why not?

Me: Why is Bush president?

CS: Because he won the election.

Me: Some things just don't make sense.

CS: Y-H-U-R-I?

Me: Wrong H. . .

In about half an hour, I'm headed out to meet some of my old coworkers for lunch. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed them until I talked to one this morning. College Boy still has to return some books to me, now that I think about it. No problem. I know where he lives.

Time to post. I've gotten some New Years resolutions from readers; if you want to make any suggestions, go ahead and email me. You have time still. I probably won't get around to writing them up in an actual entry until the end of this week or the next.