AN UNFORTUNATE NAMESAKE
For about twenty years now the Police Records Office of my city have pursued me with fines for traffic offences, that are not mine. What makes the matter even more annoying is the fact that the fines always arrive when I am away, therefore I then have to waste my time at the post office to collect the registered letter with return receipt.
A few years ago, fed up with this happening, I turned myself into a detective and decided to track down the person, who shared my name, to whom the fines should have been sent to.
I discovered that she did not live here and that apart from the name, we have absolutely nothing in common. I called her and when I pointed out the situation in which I found myself, she told me that she would inform her lawyer of the matter and would let me know. I have not heard from her since. The fines have continued to arrive and it is not difficult to guess the advice given from the pettifogger: “Who's making you go and stir things up?” - would surely have been said - “Till now they haven't come looking for you, it's better to pretend that you know nothing”. Although, it does put somebody in the middle of a situation who has nothing to do with it, but who cares. They couldn't give a damn!
Also twice the Police have come to my house to deliver me the forms. When I had asked them how comes they had come to me, when it has nothing to do with me, they replied they had found my name in the telephone directory. So..do you see? In that case, if this other person, just supposing, kills somebody, they would come and arrest me because in the telephone book there is my address.
Having said that, my homynym has not killed anybody, she has though a relative that is stained with a criminal record. So, whilst going to look at my website, the crime reported on the newspaper has been for months found against my name. “What lovely relatives you have!” Someone said to me, who believed that that particular article had been referring to me and my family.
But the unfortunate namesake has had other consequences, even though less serious. I have had to change my accountant from the one I used because I got delivered her files instead of mine, and I have to give a false name in the laundry as on the computer her name is already registered. The most paradoxical thing occurred at the eye-specialist where I have been going for three years. As soon as my name is typed into his device, I am told “You have the...” followed by the name of some illness. I, patiently, explain to him that no, no I do not have this illness, perhaps it is attributable to my homynym. Then there's the telephone calls (my namesake runs an old people's home), in which the people ask me how much it would cost to send me one of their elderly patients...
There is a old saying in Rome that goes: “But is it really possible to live like this?”