Received a call on my cellphone asking for me by name and then checking to confirm that I'm the one who does land surveys. The standard conversation followed with me asking questions about exactly where, why, when needed, etc. The new client confirms that he wants to hire me. I then realized that I didn't know his name yet. So, I asked, "What is your name?" He says, "Randy Steiniger". My very first thought is, "No, you're not." My second thought is, "This is a prank call." My third thought is, "Oh, yeah. There really are two Randy Steiniger's in that town. This must be THE OTHER one."
I covered up well. Got the rest of the details. Then said, "I assume you know the other Randy Steiniger in your town. I was talking with him less than two hours ago." He said that they had only met a couple of times despite living two blocks apart.
The other Randy is a county official with whom I interact two or more times each week. Coincidentally, I did a survey for him several years ago. The one who is the county official introduces himself as Randal to strangers. I had asked him about this because when we were in school together he was always just Randy. He told me of the existence of the other Randy and explained there had been some confusion with local businesses and banks who had accounts with both Randy's. The town's population is roughly 5000.
My dad had a similar situation in a town of 600. There were two Ernest Johnsons in town. Sometimes when dealing with someone from out of town it could get real confusing, i.e., interesting.
I had a weird thing happen last year. Someone called and ordered a lot & block survey, then I got another lot & block survey from someone else the same day. Although these two were unrelated, and the location of the properties were miles apart, the subdivision plats were recorded in sequential plat book/pages. One was 64/44, the other 64/45. And this is in a county with 120+ plat books.
I also had two jobs ordered in the same week in different cities. One was on "Chickadee Drive". The other on "Chickadee Court". About 15 miles apart.
We had a R. Young and a R. Jung (pronounced young) here for a while. They knew each other and traveled together. Both married gals named Patty. Worked for both. Talk about confusing. I guess when they traveled together it was pretty tough.
Knew a professor in Mississippi whose name was Billy Joe and his wife was Billie Jo. How's that for confusing?
There was another guy at the (large) company I worked for whose first name was William and I'm Bill, with the same middle and last names. No genealogical connection we could identify. I now have his obituary.
Speaking of traveling, my first boss at that company was Dennis Day and he often traveled with another guy named James Durante. They disappointed a lot of people when they turned out not to be the show business guys.
I know a fellow who has no problem getting great taxi and limo service when he takes his wife to Las Vegas. His name is Wayne Newton.
We had a similar problem when I was a young lad. My dad's name is Randy Putnam and our address was 1800. The problem was that Randy Putman lived on the same street just a theoretical block away with an address of 1700. It became an almost nightly occurrence to do a mail swap at 1750.
