Stop being so stupid. It's my turn.

OK, here are the old cabinets now occupying space in a landfill somewhere. They were made out of some kind of composition board (very heavy) and had a backward-beveled edge. The paint was off-white and satin at least, maybe flat. As you can see, they had an old style hinge that looked ugly as well as dated.

This pic shows the color more accurately than the one above. It also shows the doors' only feature, a shallow groove routed in about an inch and a half from the edge, and with an inward radius curve at each corner. The knobs were porcelain with a dark center.
Here are the new doors. A frame 2" wide with a bead board panel and brushed nickel knobs. (Why isn't it brushed knickel knobs, or nickel nobs?) The paint is Behr's "Pure White" in semi-gloss, more suited to cabinets and easier to clean. It also makes the kitchen seem brighter, cheerier. If I count my labor as "free" I have about $300 in the project, including the hinges and knobs.
Next week I'll work on the drawer fronts.


Am I the only one?
This morning I went to the Verizon store to get a new battery to replace the new battery I got a month ago that won't hold a charge. They exchanged it, no questions, no hassles. I like that. But what I find strangely off-putting is their intake procedure.

When I entered the store I was greeted by a gal who looks to be 14 wearing jeans she had painted on. I'm going to guess she weighs about 36 pounds. She asked me what I needed help with.
"I have battery problems."
(I thought about other ways of saying that but none of them seemed like a wise choice.)
She was very friendly and polite - a good choice for greeting customers. She asked me for my phone number and my first name.

The greeters do that at restaurants, too, when they're putting you on the list. "What's your name?"
My first problem is that my first name - and I'm sure that's what they intend - includes two guttural consonant, sounds formed at the back of the throat. These are always harder for the listener to distinguish than labial or dental consonants, sounds formed against the lips or the roof of the mouth respectively. A guy named Bud won't have any trouble being understood even if he does have a bass voice. But if your name is Craig and you speak somewhere down by a G an octave and a half below middle C you can almost guarantee that they'll either ask you to repeat it or repeat back what they think you said.
"Greg?"
"Keg??"

For this reason I have frequently given them a completely bogus name, one that they can easily hear. "Ralph" works. Doesn't sound like anything else. Nobody confuses Ralph for Fred (another name I've used). And sometimes I'll choose a name that is both easy to hear and clearly bogus, just to see if they give even a hint of reaction. Beavus (two labial consonants) or Dilbert (a dental and a labial).

But there's another reason I prefer to give a fake name, and this is where it may get a little weird.

A fake name preserves my anonymity, my privacy. Someone who calls me by my first name, especially out loud in public, speaks a piece of me, and I'm not sure I want a stranger doing that. Maybe it's a little like the Native Americans (is that who it was?) who didn't want their picture taken because it took part of their soul. My name is me. Someone said the sweetest sound in any language is the sound of our own name. I'm not sure two guttural consonants sandwiching a diphthong make for euphonium, but a stranger calling out my first name in public seems like a violation of some sort. My friends, or at least acquaintances call me Craig. But complete strangers?

When I was a prof the students, as part of the college's policy, were to refer to me as Mr. MacDonald. That practice was designed to preserve a level of respect appropriate to the professor/student relationship. Using first names presumes a level of familiarity that doesn't belong, is actually harmful to that dynamic.

I have a suggestion. How about if the receptionist at Verizon, or the greeter at Applebee's gives me her name first? Then at least we're on equal footing. In fact, maybe that's the problem; as it is now they have a degree of familiarity with me that I lack with them. But if Sienna or Rachel gives me her name I'll feel a lot better about this.

"Hi, my name is Emily. What's yours?"

Yeah, that works better.
Uhm, unless my wife is with me.
Naw, she knows a 36-pound teenager sees me as nothing more than the senior citizen I am.