“What’s in a name?”

“Your name? So let me get this straight,” he asked, slightly laughing. “Your real name is Constance, but you go by Cassie? Why don’t you go by Cassandra?”

It was a very long story, and a question I had heard about a thousand times before. Normally, I had a block quote response, if you will, to explain this, but on this day I was tired.

“It is a very very long story,” I said. “I have always gone by Cassie. Have always been known as Cassie, since birth. Constance is simply the name on my legal records.”

“But why, then, didn’t your parents call you Cassandra?”

It is a long story, I said. I was going to be known as Constance, but the compromise was Cassie, and I thought that maybe someday I would grow into a Constance…and….that day has not quite come yet.

“Well,” Peter chimed in. “Cassandra is truly a perfect name for an Intelligence Analyst”.

“I agree,” I said. “Well, except for one thing.”

And Peter and I both said the same words at the exact same time, “but nobody believed her”.