As a girl who shares a last name with some very accomplished siblings, I've always had a special sympathy for people who have the same name as a well known person. Like the character named Michael Bolton in
Office Space.
That's why I feel so terrible for what I did to Richard Scott. Richard Scott is a prominent leader in the LDS church, but he's also a guy who used to be in my ward. Actually, the guy who was in my ward went by Rich, probably to avoid the inevitable onslaught of comments about the general authority, which he probably gets all the time. Anyway, for awhile I was in charge of going to ward council meetings to type up the program for Sacrament meeting. Some of the people there thought it would be real funny to put "not the general authority" in parentheses next to Richard Scott's name on the program. I didn't think it was very funny, but I was ready to move on to the next joke so I typed it in with the intention of discretely taking it out later. But sometimes people forget. Poor Richard Scott! He was visibly annoyed by the several people who nudged him and pointed to his name on the program. I don't know if I was more mortified for him or for me.
But I guess if you're going to have the same name as someone else, Richard Scott isn't so bad. Answering phones all day, I've taken calls from John Adams, Tom Petty, and most unfortunate of all, Richard Simmons. How terrible would that be?
