Automation Has Gone a Little Too Far, or Never Name Your Child Bob Anderson

First the disclaimer – I love my husband Bob more than I could ever have imagined.  But that being said, never name your child Bob Anderson (this includes Robert and Rob).  There are too many of them out there.  I am going to suggest a quota be set for each name.  I am sure a government agency would be willing to jump on this idea and our taxes could go to support such a worthy cause.  Here are a couple of reasons why his name has caused us problems.

I came home the other day and saw the red blinking light on our answering machine.  There was an automated message for my husband from a rather paranoid sounding person.  Here’s the gist of it:

“This call is for Robert Anderson.  If you are Robert Anderson, please continue to listen.  If you are not Robert Anderson and he is at home, I will pause a moment for you to get him to the phone.  Quiet.  If you are not Robert Anderson, please disconnect.  If you are Robert Anderson, please write down the following information.  I will pause a moment for you to find pen and paper.  Quiet again.  This is the law office of Notso, Slick and Smart.  Please call the following number so that we can settle a private matter with you.”

Except for the name of the law firm, I am not exaggerating here.  This is a message on our answering machine.  Am I really not supposed to listen to the entire message?  Don’t they know how many thousands of Robert Andersons are out there?  There are two on our street!  Bob has worked in offices where there were multiple Bob Andersons.  I don’t know how he hasn’t developed some kind of identity disorder.

We have also had calls to set up delivery for products that we did not order.  I even had somebody call us one time who didn’t believe that we weren’t the right Bob Anderson.  They were so insistent that they told me the social security number of the Bob they were looking for.  But the best one was one night several years ago when my husband picked up the phone to this surprising call:

“Hello, Bob?”

“Yes, this is Bob.”

“It’s so good to hear your voice.  It’s been a while.”

“Who are you calling for?”

“Bob, it’s me, your mother!”

“You don’t sound like my mother.”

“You don’t recognize your own mother’s voice?” she said with shock and tears.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in Ohio, of course.”

“Well,” my Bob said, “my mother lives in Maryland.”

“Oh, well then, never mind.”

I wish I could tell you that we learned from the problem of having such a common name, but we named one of our sons Joseph.  Sorry Joe.  If you are reading this and your name is Joseph Anderson and you are my son, thank you for your forgiveness.  If you’re not the Joseph Anderson that’s my son, never mind.