Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 1, 1993 TAG: 9303310272
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THE NAME GAME CAN BE SO TAXINGI
I've been rolling the idea around in my head for over a month now, ever since Republicans (and some Dems, too, I'm sure) smirked about Hillary Rodham Clinton taking her maiden name back - and, of all people, Marilyn Tucker Quayle, doing the exact same thing.It can be a sticky issue. The feisty senior-citizen tax preparer we went to last month swore up and down she'd never heard of a married couple filing jointly AND listing different last names.
I generally handle the raised eyebrows pretty well. I know I'm in the minority here, that more women take their husband's last name than don't.
But this woman wouldn't let it drop. She wouldn't believe that we'd previously filed jointly listing both our last names - until I proved it by showing her the sticker from last year's return.
By the time I pulled it out of my file, my husband placed his hand on my knee, gently restraining me - just in case. My face was turning red, my tone of voice staccato, my hand about to spring across the desk and grab the chain dangling from her half-glasses.
"Hmmmm," she said curiously, peering at the form, then at us. And then she still had to get the last word in: "Well, I've still never heard of it before. You know, MOST women . . . "
Yeah, tell me something I don't already know. And I was just about to explain it to her, only it hit me: It's not her business.
The same thing happened when we first got married. When people asked why I kept my maiden name, I headed them off with jokes:
"I'd just ordered two new boxes of checks . . . "
"I want all my newspaper clippings to have the same name, so that when The New York Times calls me for an interview, they won't be confused by two different names."
And then there's the standard Macy's department store connection (alas, no relation - even though my first credit card was a Macy's), underlined by the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, very loosely related to my hometown's Memorial Day parade, which fell on my birthday as a child (and I believed my mom when she said it was held in my honor).
Of course I could've opted for the truth: that I'm proud of my name and I like it, a lot. It does have that certain Je ne sais quois, which is French for, "It doesn't sound like Smigelski or Schmeizeldorft."
On the way home from the tax-preparer's office we were puzzling over the maiden-name issue, why dozens of people - and trust me, brides-to-be, this is true of all aspects of marriage-planning - are so compelled to offer their opinions. (They say it gets worse, too, when you have kids.)
Some people consider it such a threat to tradition, they take it as a personal slap in the face. After all, if it's not what they chose to do . . .
My husband's only quibble about my keeping my name is that the last name on our dog Scooter's I.D. tag must be hyphenated. (The two cats, each grandparented into the marriage, keep their original surnames.)
Although Scooter, as advanced as he is, will never have the arduous task of spelling or pronouncing his hyphenated name, our kids will. For first-grade ease, we agreed the kids get the paternal last name, although a new, third name might be fairer.
Really, I bet the IRS would even buy that - as long as we paid our taxes on time. If we started working on her now, perhaps even the tax preparer would go along with it.
Beth Macy, proud mother of Scooter Macy-Landon and Leo Macy (and wicked stepmother of the dreaded 3 a.m. meower, Clem Landon), is a features department staff writer. Her column runs Thursdays.