Surely You're Joking!

 Linking up with Mama's Losin' It for a weekly writing prompt:  

Prompt:  What did you want your name to be?

Person: "What's your name?"

Me:  "Shirley.  You know, like the child actress drink: Shirley Temple?"

And if this conversation were taking place with a cynical or sarcastic person, my name reveal would be followed up by one of the following responses:

"Shirley?  Surely you're joking!"
"Shirley? That sounds like a big black lady's name"
"Shirley?  As in Lavern's Shirley?

And if I were talking to a Latin person:  "Churley?  Cheerlay?"  - They would never get it right since my name didn't require rolling your R's or end in a vowel like all my high school friends: Cynthi-A, Odili-A, Monic-A, Silvi-A, even the white girl's name was Sarit-A.  Can you tell I was bitter about my name in high school?  Imagine what it felt like to hang with a bunch of Latin girls and be the only one that looked Asian yet had an Old English name (my last name is even worse!).  There was nothing Latin about me.  I even did the permed hair thing for a few years to feign that sexy,curly Latin hair.  I remember once, a guy in our group suggested I start being called:  Shirl-lisa - so that my name could at least end in a vowel.  Sadly, that name never caught on.
    
Honestly, although I often complained about how unfitting my name is, I never really stopped to think what it should have been.  I was always just "Shirley".  No fun nickname.  Not even "Shirl"; just "Shirley" and I accepted it.  But if I could change my name to any other, it would most likely be the name that I had saved for the baby girl that I never had:

Mia.

Short. Sweet. Easy to spell and ends in a vowel (score!).  "Mia"

"Surely, you can't be serious!"

I am serious.  And don't call me Shirley....

Bad Leslie Nielsen pun on my own name just now! - Shirley Mia