Mmmmmmm... Alexanders

Mike was in the office yesterday. Having him in the office is fun, since we rarely see him anymore. One client is kicking his butt, which is worrisome given Mike's propensity to give his all to the detriment of his own health. (Gee, do we know anyone else who does that?)

Somehow, we ended up on the topic of last names. I think it was after Mike found some Lake Doyle and commented that Chris had a lake named after him. I mentioned that Doyle isn't exactly an uncommon last name (is it even an uncommon first name?). We talked about last names this and last names that, when Mike said that, hey, Gull isn't as common of a last name as you might think. Well, I don't know, how common did he think I thought Gull was?

Not that common, he continued. I'm not sure which of us said it first, but both of us believed that our own name was less common than the other's name. Doyle excepted, of course. No way, no way, he said, Gull is less common than Hodsden. No way, no way, I insisted, Hodsden is less common than Gull.

"Wanna bet?" he asked.

"Sure. What's the bet?" I answered.

"Dinner."

"Oh? Home cooked or out?"

"Alexanders, of course."

"You're on."

Doyle pointed out that we had to agree on the spellings we were looking for. Hudson is a lot more common than Hodsden, as is Hodgson, too. Gulll with three Ls, probably even rarer. We were going with how each of us spelled our last names on legal documents. Fine.

We then started looking online for resources on name commonality ranking. The few sites he checked my last name gave an error, so Mike went on to other sites, looking for the relative rankings of the popularity of our last names. Site after site after site had Gull, two Ls, ranked around 33669, and Hodsden unranked. After the third or fourth site, Mike conceded, just as Andy walked in to my loud, boisterous cheers.

"I just won a $600 dinner! Whoo!"

Andy looked a bit scandalized. Who would pay $600 for a dinner?

Well, Mike would when he lost a bet. A doozy of a bet.