Cassie Cares

Whenever Zach Yakel goes to a restaurant that requires a name, he lies. He tells the hostess that his name is “Jack,” because in his mind, he is a man named Jack who doesn’t exactly have reservations. The trouble is, “Jack” sounds a lot like “Zach” and “Zach” can never really tell whether the hostess said his real name or his other name. Also, Zach/Jack has some pretty severe hearing loss, so even if the hostess called him by his birth-name or his… after-birth-name, he wouldn’t hear it anyhow.

“Cassie,” I said, when the cashier at Panera asked for my name. “It’s Cassie.” I should have said, “It’s fucking Cassie!”

But that would have been unnecessary F-Word usage, which is a red-card in the soccer game of customer service.

For me, my truths are just as good as my fictions, with the exception being all the times I’ve been a part of fake-engagements in order to get free drinks for myself or my companions. That’s way better than telling the truth. “My friends and I fake being engaged so you, Poor Sucker, will pay our tab.”

Ahem.

A young man sat by me on the plane. I am not accustomed to having normal-weight people sitting next to me on flights, so I took immediate notice. He had a freckle on his chin that might one day be considered a mole, but maybe he’ll get it removed because reading this made him insecure about it. Not the point.  His name was Josh, he had a smart phone AND an iPod touch. He was wearing nice jeans, his nails were clean, and Josh was missing a tooth.

Normally, when people ask me questions about my tattoos, I am annoyed.

“Gee, I got them just so you could ask,” is what Zach Yakel says. I usually stumble through some stupid answer about symbolism and dead babies, muttering and giggling until all involved are sweating with discomfort.

When a guy with a missing tooth asks about your tattoos, you really can’t be mad about it. I wonder how many people have asked him, “Well shit! What does the other guy look like?!”

He has a choice. He can tell the truth “My friend accidentally punched me in the face because I was messing with her phone,” or he could lie, “I donated it to my dad. He needed an incisor transplant to live.”

I didn’t bother lying. Instead, I told him everything. I told him about the time I buried a skeleton key under a tree and never found it again. I told him about the necklace I had in college. About the ISU fan whom Evelyn and I found dead-drunk, which earned us $100. I told him about how intrusive marketing is and how Chicagoans are a lot fatter than Omahans if you really think about it. How I like PF Chang’s and IKEA. I told him about my boyfriend’s hippie phase and how United is a shitty airline.

The only thing I didn’t tell him?

My name.

So all that unsolicited honesty? It didn’t mean “Jack.”