What is My Husband’s Name? [Tall Drink of Nerd]

This year I will have been married 10 years. It’s still a few months away, so save the congrats until we actually make it. Since we kinda eloped (I bought a dress, he rented a tux, we grabbed a preacher off the internet and got married on the beach about eight days later), I had the brilliant idea to throw a fun party for our 10th Anniversary. So it goes to reason that after a big shindig, we should take a second honeymoon, right?

Let’s go to Paris!

Other than a day trip to Tijuana for me, and some childhood visits to Southern Canada from WI for my hubby, neither my husband, Seen, or I have traveled outside of the United States. We haven’t been static by choice, just by circumstance, lack of finances and lack of time. We both come from money-poor, love-rich families so we didn’t travel much as youngsters either.

For our original honeymoon, we took 10 days off work, drove to Colorado for a wedding reception with my family and then tooled back to California by way of various National Parks that dot the Southwest. It was a fun trip, but I’m aching to put my feet on foreign soil.

I’ve polled my co-workers and friends who travel. For a first trip abroad, everyone recommends Paris. The romantic City of Lights, filled with visions of figures from history, literature, fashion and chocolát. There is a possibility I’ll hit up fellow F&N blogger, Gudrun, to show me where the best macarons are. As a cemetary-phile I’m very excited to visit the Père Lachaise Cemetary where Jim Morrison, among others, rest in peace. I want to see Mona Lisa in person, stroll along the Sienne and cower in the elevator on the Eiffel Tower. It’s a wonderful place for lovahs. It’s a place that would require a passport to visit.

But wait, we need passports –

As we’ve never traveled abroad, neither one of us has a passport. Not a big deal, we just need to fill out the forms I downloaded from the government, go to Kinko’s, get our picture taken and submit everything at our local post office. You would think that filling in the field of “Name” on that government form would be the easiest part of this whole process. Nope, this is where we hit the bump in the road.

Who am I married to?

Seen, was named Seen by his mother, not by himself as some douche-bag way to seem cool as a rock-star. She spelled his name on the birth certificate “Sean”. Mother Robinson tells us he was named after Sean Connery (pronounced “Seen”). According to her, Mr. Bond changed the pronunciation to ‘Shawn’ when he became an actor. Turns out his real name is Thomas Sean (pronounced “Shawn) Connery. So there’s that. We don’t know what to do with that.

You can imagine that his entire life, he’s been called Shawn (or Steve or Dean by those who think they’ve mis-heard “Seen”). He knows when I’m mad at him because I yell “Steven Dean Robertson”, based on those mis-hearings. Even people who know him call him Shawn, because it’s hard to get your brain around the “Seen”.

Seen is kind of a fun name to have around. I tell him he’s being ob-Seen or that is he better Seen than heard. At Christmas time, I always get a few presents from Seen-ta Claus. He likes puns, which is fortunate considering his name. I’m sure you could come up with a few Seen puns of your own. Go ahead and try to come up with something he hasn’t Seen.

I’ve been with him for 21 years. As soon as I show anyone his name, I know I’ll have to explain how it’s pronounced and why. He has been dealing with that for longer than I have. Now he wants to legally change the spelling to “Seen” and avoid all that explaining.

Since a passport lasts a decade, Seen needs to figure out what he wants his name to be for the next 10 years. Then we can take these applications down to the local Post Office and log the suckers into the record. I love him, no matter what name I yell across the apartment. But after years of explaining his name to everyone and their mother, I can’t wait for him to make the change.

Perhaps when we meet new friends in gay Paree, he will at last be able to confidently state “Je m’appelle Seen!”

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featured image credit: y.caradec