My Japanese wife was born blessed -- or cursed -- with the kind of meat-and-potatoes name one usually assumes is an alias. In English a comparable moniker might be "Mary Brown" or "Susan Smith."
This soapsuds name did not trouble her until one day she was pulled in by detectives convinced that she was the same "Mary Brown" who had vanished with a lot of someone else's money. Same age, same height and same name -- but still the wrong girl.
She slipped that noose easily enough, but began to look forward to the day when wedlock would sprinkle her name with some much needed spice -- never dreaming she was soon to meet and marry me. Looking for simple seasoning, she instead ended up with a sweet-and-sour zinger, a mixed name that was doomed to roll off the tongue funny no matter where she was.
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