Monologue

“Joseph?” the professor asked out loud to confirm the presence of one of the twenty plus students listed on the printed copy his roster. “Joseph?” he asked again after being left without a response the first time he asked. The entire class, myself included, looked around for the person to which this name belonged. “Alright, not here I guess” he said before he moved on to the next name on his list and pretty soon he got to them all. At first, I thought that I didn’t hear my name get called simply because I just didn’t hear him the first time. This of course was a possibility as I did have my headphones over my ears. But then I realized that I heard every other name that was called so that couldn’t have been it. It was only after I went through all the other possibilities that began to consider that the “Joseph” he was asking for a moment ago was me. So now I’m sitting in my seat wondering what had possessed this man to randomly choose my first name to be the one that he would skipped over. It wasn’t that hard to pronounce. And while I know that my name isn’t exactly common its close enough to what’s considered correct that he could’ve a least tried to guess. This was almost as bad as never getting to see my name on gift shop items.