A Brief Rant

Yesterday I was having a prescription filled near where I work. Here's the conversation when I went to pick it up:

ME: I'm here to pick up a prescription.

STORE CLERK: What's your last name?

ME: Paul.

SC: No, your last name.

ME: Paul.

SC: Paul's a first name.

ME: It's also a last name. I know what my name is.

As it turned out, my prescription was filed under "Paul, Randall" not Randall Paul. This is not the first time it has happened. It's also stupid. Let's look at this empirically:

Here's a screen capture of a Yahoo People Search for the surname Paul:

The search disclosed 28,914 listings with the surname Paul. As for Randall, see for yourself:

The results show 20,828 listings found with the surname Randall. Accordingly, there were more than 8,000 listings with the surname Paul than with the surname Randall. By this measure, Paul is certainly a more common surname than Randall.

I bet Tommy John, George Michael, Greg Anthony, David James and Larry David don't have this problem.

Comments

[Stephen]

Tell it like it is, Randy!

[Randy Paul]

I figured you could empathize . . .