Renting a room--my stereotypes run rampant

Rattling around in my big house in Santa Cruz, I decided to rent a room, more for some live company than for the money, but that too. My small classified ad went into the Good Times local events sheet and soon I got a message that somone, an engineer was interested. I called the phone number sent me and a woman answered the phone. "Can I speak to the engineer who answered my ad," I said, expecting a man. "That's me," she said. (Whoops!).

So I continued the conversation and made an appointment to interview her in a convenient lunch spot nearby on the way to Monterey where she worked. I asked her name. "Chevonne" was the answer I heard back. "Hmm, a black woman engineer," I mused, as I never had known a white woman with that name.

I arrived in the restaurant in good time and waited as customers walked in. And waited, chatting and sipping a pina colada with my friend Steve who had come along. And waited. And waited. Finally, a woman walked up to us and asked, "One of you wouldn't be George by any chance, would you?" "Why yes," I said, expecting this person to apologize for Chevonne's lateness or no-show. "Great, she said, I'm Siobhan." (Whoops!).