Mumsee, my freshman year at the end of the year I was staying in the dorms over the summer (as I did every summer), and I’d signed up to do so. We could (optionally) go in person and choose a roommate for the summer, but I had only a couple of friends and they weren’t staying, so I figured I’d take whoever the college assigned.
It turned out that the college was putting three women to a room, and that they put me with two others who had chosen each other. One of those was named Cheryl, and maddeningly all summer long, whenever the phone rang and the caller asked for Cheryl, this third person handed the phone to the Cheryl she knew, even if I was standing right there and I could hear my mother or a friend’s voice (and it was in the days of 25 cents a minute phone calls). You’d think that by the end of summer she would either recognize my mother’s voice or learn to ask “Cheryl D. or Cheryl H.?” but no, only one of us was a “real” Cheryl. Fortunately a couple of months into summer they decided to move us into a different dorm, with two women per room, and someone I knew from the library asked if I wanted to room with her. They were using the rooms I was in during the school year, so I requested my familiar room (and got it), and the other summers of my college career I was able to request a specific roommate. But those months that I was the invisible second Cheryl were tough and lonely ones for me. (Now one of my closest friends from church is Cheryl, and we rejoice in both having the same name, but I vividly remember that summer when I was an unwanted third party.)
I know I’m not unwanted, Mumsee, which is why I met your first couple times of calling the other Cheryl the “real” Cheryl with humor. 🙂 I just don’t especially like it; we’re both real!
Wandering Views 
how are the real and the real Cheryl doing?
mumsee
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Continued prayers for our nation and for AJ and Cheryl.
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Amen.
mumsee
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And prayers also that the ongoing wars would cease with equitable peace accords.
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Yes, wondering how AJ and Cheryl are doing.
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Mumsee, my freshman year at the end of the year I was staying in the dorms over the summer (as I did every summer), and I’d signed up to do so. We could (optionally) go in person and choose a roommate for the summer, but I had only a couple of friends and they weren’t staying, so I figured I’d take whoever the college assigned.
It turned out that the college was putting three women to a room, and that they put me with two others who had chosen each other. One of those was named Cheryl, and maddeningly all summer long, whenever the phone rang and the caller asked for Cheryl, this third person handed the phone to the Cheryl she knew, even if I was standing right there and I could hear my mother or a friend’s voice (and it was in the days of 25 cents a minute phone calls). You’d think that by the end of summer she would either recognize my mother’s voice or learn to ask “Cheryl D. or Cheryl H.?” but no, only one of us was a “real” Cheryl. Fortunately a couple of months into summer they decided to move us into a different dorm, with two women per room, and someone I knew from the library asked if I wanted to room with her. They were using the rooms I was in during the school year, so I requested my familiar room (and got it), and the other summers of my college career I was able to request a specific roommate. But those months that I was the invisible second Cheryl were tough and lonely ones for me. (Now one of my closest friends from church is Cheryl, and we rejoice in both having the same name, but I vividly remember that summer when I was an unwanted third party.)
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you are not unwanted, you are the Blog Cheryl which actually makes you more real than the real Cheryl!
mumsee
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I know I’m not unwanted, Mumsee, which is why I met your first couple times of calling the other Cheryl the “real” Cheryl with humor. 🙂 I just don’t especially like it; we’re both real!
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