a.k.a. V.J.

To be named Vance is to spend a lifetime being called Lance or Vince. That’s just the way it is. I am so resigned to that fate that I will sometimes answer to either of those two names without correcting the person, if it’s just a one-time transaction. After all, a single letter one way or the other is essentially within the allowable margin of error.

But every now and then, someone will butcher my name in a new and creative way that leaves me a little bemused. Case in point: on a recent trip to a sandwich shop, I was asked for my name and received the order ticket below with what the clerk apparently heard.

“Danz.” After a brief chuckle, my thoughts immediately turned to John Fogerty’s 1985 song “Vanz Kant Danz.” That tune wasn’t exactly a chart-topper, but it showed up on MTV back in the day and when a song has your (sort of) name in it, you remember it. When that song came out, I took a little ribbing for it, mostly because the main character in the video was a Claymation pig. Annoyingly, a few years later, Pee-Wee Herman came out with a movie called “Big Top Pee-Wee” that featured a character named Vance the Pig. With all the swine references, it was as if my name was quite literally getting dragged through the mud.

But a lifetime of misnaming and porcine associations aside, Vance is the name my parents saw fit to give me and I’ve never considered changing it or going by anything else. (I do sometimes imagine an alternate timeline in which I decided at a young age to roll with “V. James Marriner,” but am ultimately grateful to Past Me for not going there.)

It’s true that I can’t danz and the former lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival is convinced that I’m a thief, but on the plus side, if you call me something that at least kind of rhymes with my actual name, I’ll probably be pretty chill about it.