Apu Nahasapeemapetilon

For someone who has never been to India, I have a lot of Indian friends. One of my closest friends from college is Indian, I've dated a few Indian girls before, and recently in a hang-out-enough-with-friends-of-a-friend-they-become-your-friends kind of way I have, well, become friends with a whole new group of people, most of whom are Indian.

One result of this is I'm a pro at pronouncing Indian names. You get used to how letter combinations are said and you no longer stumble over them. I don't need phonetical spellings of names to "translate" in my brain how to say them. When I meet someone with an Indian name, I no longer have to do that thing where you repeat the name a couple of times to make sure you get it right. It's the same thing with Russian names for me; I watch so much hockey seeing something like "Afinogenov" or "Khabibulin" or "Afanasenkov" is nothing. A month ago I had to set a meeting with a Russian woman whose first and last names were very long. When I spelled her name to her just to make sure I had it right, I could hear a gasp on the other end of the line. She was amazed I knew it.

But so, like I said, I have enough Indian friends now to not be phased by the unfamiliarity of a lot of Indian names. But recently I've noticed one drawback to this.

It takes me longer to scan through my email box to get rid of spam mail.

Why?

Because most spam mail subject lines I get are filled with misspellings and gibberish. So when I get an email proclaiming "Greentea news" my immediate thought is, "wait, who is Greentea?" and then I get tricked into thinking "Greentea" is someone I know and something has happened in their life. And so I open the email and only then do I realize it's really just spam mail referring to "green tea."

Now add in emails from Padraig and Siobhan and other Irish relatives and friends and my email inbox is the U-fricking-N where vowels are at a premium.