My therapist's name is Kelly. This is red flag number one. No reputable therapist has the name Kelly. Linda, maybe. Even more possibly, Elizabeth (but not if she goes by Betty). Honestly, I just have trouble trusting people with first names that end in the letter Y. I just feel like a name says a lot about a person. Eugenes are geeks. Chads are douchebags. Kellys are incompetent therapists. My name is Calvin, but no one has called me that since the second grade after Brandon (also a douchebag name) Kubertsky got everyone in the class to laugh at me for having a name that was stitched across the waistbands of provocative male underwear models across the nation. From that moment on, I decided to go by "Kevin" instead. It was a name that didn't stand out much, an unglamorous name that you might expect to find etched on the breast pocket of a grocery store manager aspiring to become more than just a master of produce but never quite acting on goals he didn't have and dreams he hadn't dreamt of yet. Plus, it was close enough to "Calvin" that I wouldn't accidentally ignore people if they ever needed to get my attention, which was more wishful thinking if anything as I had only two friends, one of which was an international student from Venezuela who only responded to my sad and equally awkward attempts at conversation with nervous laughter because he didn't speak any English. I don't blame him. Talking is hard.

I take a quick glance at the manilla folder Kelly has rested on her pant-suited lap. My eyes linger around the label to see which name she has scribbled down with her loopy handwriting. This is red flag number two: no professional, in any field, should have loopy handwriting. It's just wrong. The tab reads "Kevin," but the K and E are darker than the rest of the other letters... like she had to retrace it multiple times to hide the evidence that she had accidentally written "Calvin," even though I explained the story behind my name change during our first session together, before my file even existed. I'm convinced that if my therapist's name was Barabara, this mistake wouldn't have happened. But alas, I'm stuck with Kelly.

Now you might ask, "Kevin, if you hate your therapist so much, why don't you just find a new one?" I could. There is literally nothing stopping me from writing up a check with my non-loopy handwriting to pay for my last session and tossing it at her as I do a little dance and flip her off before leaving her office for good. But as she likes to point out during our sessions, I am a creature of habit, and after coming to see her for the past three months, I don't feel like retelling the depressing saga of my life all over again. So, Kelly it is.