Fun at Starbucks

When you buy something at Starbucks, they usually ask for your name and call your as soon as your coffee is ready. The process is neat and efficient except for the fact that the Americans never seem to quite get a hang of Indian names and usually you have to spell it to them. Even spelling out your name is difficult because they usually misunderstand 'v' as 'b'.
One of my friends, having quite a complicated name by American standards, came up with ingenious solution. He started giving his names as Bumbles, which Starbucks guys understood without a hitch. I liked the idea very much and next time I gave my name as John, and it was the quickest service I ever received at any Starbucks. Next time, I tried Ben, then Ryan, then Chris and each time the service was just marvellous.
Now, after ordering for some time, I hit another idea - I decided to derive some (sadistic) pleasure out of ordering the coffee. Next time, when I ordered my coffee, I gave the name as Anam (pronounced Ay-nAm - a girl's name) and watched them struggle with spelling, but only a bit. On my next order onwards, I let my wildness loose and came up with name Chattopadhyay, then Chittaranjan, followed by Ananthsaynam and then the killer - Kozhikode (an Indian city) - each time it was quite fun to watch then requesting me to say it again with an 'eh, what?' expression and then finally asking me spell that while a long queue of impatient customers waited behind me. Even with spelling, they had trouble because the stream of characters never seemed to end for them, imagine me spelling Ananthsaynam real slow on a morning rush hour, and the counter clerk trying to rush things through. Once, the girl just stopped me at 'Ananthsa' and told me that I will get my coffee. All this while, I worked hard to keep a straight face and gave the name in matter-of-factly way.
Quite fun to do once in a while, for now, I am back to John!