Sometimes, things get in the way of me completing things in a timely manner after I start them. So it was with changing my name. Ending up in hospital and seeing a myriad of different doctors meant that I hadn't changed my name on anything related to healthcare. Doing a name change in the middle of that was bound to confuse somebody as I trekked between different departments and came back several times for follow up visits.
As the saying goes, it's better late than never and so I was queuing up at a local government healthcare branch to claim some payments for medical services under my old name before proceeding with a change of name with them. I presented my receipts to the lady as well as my card. She began circling relevant information with a pencil in a way that they seemed to be trained to do it.
She paused before entering any information into her computer and asked, "Who are these claims for?"
"That's me", I replied chirpily. I knew of course, that several of the receipts had a dreaded "Mr" as the title before my former name and I was wondering how she was going to deal with this.
"Oh", she said a little surprised. "It's just that these have a male name and you look like... "
Her voice trailed off.
Silence.
I wouldn't really say it was an awkward silence since I was somewhat amused although she might have felt a little awkward. I unfolded my change of name certificate and pushed it across the counter and broke the silence.
"I have to do a change of name today as well."
"I'll enter these in first and then we can do the change of name", she replied flicking herself back into work mode. Good recovery!
I don't know if I was grinning more than usual, but I thought it was funny...
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