Every so often, just when you think you’re going to make good time on knocking out the day’s “to do” list, you have an encounter that grinds time to a halt.
Such was an encounter recently when I brought my son Anders to a retro looking barber shop before a trip to L.A. (As evidence in the cover photo, when the person next to you is barely visible due to your hair, it might be time for a trim.)
“I’m sorry, I don’t see an appointment for Anders Hammerberg,” the stylist at the front desk said. She was in her thirties, her dyed red hair piled high in a messy bun. “We are all booked, but I can schedule him for another day.”
I pulled up a text on my phone.
“I have a text here confirming his appointment for 2:00 pm today.”
But the stylist wasn’t interested in looking at my text, just the computer screen which she checked again, and then shook her head.
“No. I do not see an Anders Hammerberg on the schedule at all today. And I can’t cut his hair now because I have someone else at two….”
I’m about to give up when she continued, “I’m waiting for an Anders Sanders.”
“Oh!” I said, “well, that’s probably my son.”
“No, it’s Anders Sanders,” she repeated.
“I know, but what are the odds that you happen to have an appointment for a different Anders at 2:00 today?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she replied, “the universe creates like-mindedness all the time. Like, yesterday morning, I only had clients named Chris.”
A part of me wanted to ask how many clients she had yesterday morning. If she had had eight, that would be impressive if they were all named Chris. If she only had two, then not so much.
But I didn’t want to get off topic.
“But Anders isn’t that common of a name,” I said.
“Oh, I know a ton of Anders!’” she replied, rolling her head back like I wouldn’t even be able to fathom the number.
Once again, I wanted to ask more questions, like, “a ton?” But, this had become a delicate enough interchange as it was. And one that had me stumped. My lack of movement prompted her to look at the computer again, and she read out loud the phone number next to Anders Sanders’s name. It was my phone number, and I relaxed as surely this was the proof she needed. That’s why she thought to check it.
“Yes, that’s me. That’s my phone number,” I said. “I think the woman I talked to on the phone when I made the appointment just put in the wrong last name, or maybe I didn’t give her a last name and she needed to type in something.”
“Or, she put in the wrong phone number,” the stylist countered, looking up at me with a one-eyebrow raised in a look that said, “bet you didn’t think of that, did you?”
She paused and thought for a moment. I held my breath, hoping that inside her brain she was putting together the pieces to a 2-piece puzzle.
It did seem like she had solved something.
“Wait a minute is your last name different from your son’s?”
“It is,” I answered slowly, and now in my own brain I quickly tried to figure out how things might play out if I told her my last name was Sanders. She would see that it wasn’t my name on my credit card. But maybe she wouldn’t notice? Or maybe if she did I could just shrug and be a bad ass about it. I’m not a bad ass. Did I have enough cash in my car? I think I might have enough cash in my car…
She looked at me, excited, “what is your last name?”
Just say it. Say your last name is Sanders.
“It’s Rutherford,” I answered.
Boo.
“Oh, because I thought for a moment that maybe it had just been put under your last name…”the stylist looks genuinely disappointed. I could relate, I was disappointed too.
“I know, and that was a good idea.”
I looked at Anders. At some point he went from being age 3 and three feet tall with stick straight light blond hair to age 16 and 6ft 3” tall with brown super curly hair.
“I want to grow it out as big as possible,” Anders will announce, and with his dad’s enthusiastic support.
“The bigger the better!” Mark will say.
It had taken a lot to finally convince Anders to trim it, just a little.
“Okay, how about this,” I said, “can I leave my son here and if Anders Sanders doesn’t show up, then can you cut his hair?”
“Of course!” the stylist answered cheerfully, “let’s give it five to ten minutes.”
“Great.”
I walked with Anders over to a chair in the waiting area and slipped him my credit card.
“I mean, what are the odds there is another Anders booked at 2:00 with the exact same phone number?” I whispered to him.
“No, let’s start here,” my son whispered back, “what are the odds of anyone naming their kid Anders Sanders?”
What were the odds of someone naming their child Anders Saunders? I wondered.
Finding out the answer to this went on the top of my “to-do” list. Of course.
On Facebook I found 10 people named Anders Sanders. Out of a world population of 7.8 billion, that’s ten more than I expected. Most live in Europe. Looks like one in Japan. In any case, if my calculations are correct, the odds of anyone naming their child Anders Sanders are one in 780 million.
End note: Turned out Anders Sanders was a no show, and Anders Hammerberg got his trim making it more likely to get a clear shot of anyone who happens to be next to him in a photo.
