You talking to me?

I don't even recognize my own name in this country

It’s surprising how tiny, seemingly insignificant details can totally throw you off, serving as constant, daily reminders you are not in your own land. 

Different electrical plugs. Paddle door handles. Disc-like light switches. The odd way the phone rings. Pastel-colored money. Magpies. The sound of an ambulance. Weighing your own produce at the supermarket. Grams, meters, celsius. Plants you don’t recognize. Military time. French rap.

Day-after-day you use, hear and see these odd things until, eventually, it starts to feel normal to turn on a light, count change and tell time. 

One thing that hasn’t become even one bit familiar is recognizing my own last name in French. 

It’s not that much of a stretch to alter my first name to its Frenchified version. “Terre-ā-za” still sounds a lot like Theresa. But I can’t wrap my ears around how the French pronounce my last name. Instead of Theresa Conroy, here–in the land of the strictly-required honorific–I am Madame Cawn-rwah. The first part kind of rhymes with “yawn,” but with a rounder ‘O’ sound. The second half has a slightly rolled ‘R’ followed by the sound of clearing mucus from the back of your throat while simultaneously making fun of someone who is acting like a baby. (Wah-Wah-Wah!)

Top this off by the fact that, in French, my last name sounds exactly like they are saying, con roi, which means “idiot king.”

In French, “Conroy” sounds like “idiot king.”

Even so, it’s not embarrassment of the family lineage as stupid rulers that causes my hesitation when called in for an appointment. It’s the complete lack of recognition that what the doctor just said was, indeed, my own last name. I usually wait just a beat, acting really enthralled by the home decor magazine from 2016, until no one else in the waiting room stands up. Then I’m pretty sure they called my name. Maybe. (I once got up to take another person’s appointment simply because it sounded like it could be my name, but then it wasn’t.)

For Doe-nal (a/k/a Donald), his French last name has pretty much the same sound as his American last name. Roo-sell isn’t that far off. What always trips him up, though, is that they consistently spell it wrong. Then we have to go around adding another ‘L’ on to the end on all the important documents. 

I always have to spell my last name (Say-oh-n-air-oh-egrek) because the French don’t have any better luck than I getting their ears around Conroy with an American accent. And of course I use an American accent so as not to refer to the idiot king situation. It was a welcome break at the beautiful Galeries Lafayette department store when I realized my new customer loyalty card could be located using my phone number instead of my name. Unfortunately, another customer was also using that phone number, so, Madame Cawn-rwah, you’ll have to straighten it out downstairs with customer service, where you will, obviously, have to spell that last name out for them. 

Le sigh. 

I’m willing to hang in there, but just in case, I have a backup plan. I’m considering adopting Don’s strategy from high school French when the teacher thought his very American first name didn’t sound French enough to use in class. He chose a new one: Napoleon. 

At least he was a smart ruler.