Coming back home from Thanksgiving break, I wanted food. So I called Joe and convinced him to take me to In-‘N’-Out. Jesse and Kaitlyn would join too.
While we were waiting in the Hotchkiss lounge, we started talking about how people spell “Kaitlyn” with a C. Others would spell Kaitlyn “K-A-T-E-L-Y-N.” I, being the loving friend that I am, decided to mess with Kaitlyn and change the spelling of her name in my phone to Cateline “C-A-T-E-L-I-N-E,” which morphed into Catalina “C-A-T-A-L-I-N-A.” Kaitlyn’s new name was Catalina.
Catalina decided that she wanted to get back at me. She needed a nickname for me, one that bothered me. We were talking about this in line at the caf when I stupidly blabbered about my nicknames.
“People call me lot of things. ‘Jer,’ ‘Jerry,’ ‘J,’ and I’m fine with being called all those things, but I don’t really like being called, ‘Jeremy,’” I said.
Catalina had an idea, one that I foolishly gave her!
“I’m going to start calling you ‘Jeremy’!” Catalina said.
Catalina then proceeded to change my contact card from “Jeremiah Yonemura” to “Jeremy Toyota.” Why Toyota? It’s because I’m Japanese, and I think the “yo” in Toyota and the “Yo” in Yonemura and the “a” ending make the two names similar enough.
Then the battle ensued. I told everyone about my friend Catalina. My goal was to get everyone to call Catalina by her real name, Catalina. Her retaliation was to get others to call me “Jeremy.”
And it worked. For Catalina, that is. Everyone in our friend group was on board with calling me “Jeremy.” I would show them my ID card to prove that my name was “Jeremiah Yonemura,” but all they saw was “Jeremy Toyota.” When I started working at the cafeteria, I told my boss Brandon about Catalina’s name, and now he calls me “Jeremy” too!
Hope would ask me, “What is her name?”
“Catalina,” I replied.
“Then your name is Jeremy,” Hope said.
Unfortunately, I did not have the same success. I got my friends to accidentally call Catalina by her actual name a couple times, but never did people do it on purpose. However, everyone called me “Jeremy”—on purpose.
Moreover, Catalina would steal my phone, and because she knows my passcode, she would take my phone and change my contact card to “Jeremy Toyota” and her contact card “Kaitlyn R.” And one time it took me three months to figure out that Catalina had changed my profile name and picture in the Bible app.
It has been two years now, and I guess until I accept defeat, Kaitlyn shall be Catalina, and I shall forever be “Jeremy Toyota.”
