Its Pronouced Cray-po! Like crayon or cray fish.

We are well aware the spelling of our name can put people in a situation where they aren't sure how to pronounce it. It is French and was originally spelled Crapeaux, but upon immigration to the New World, became Crapo.

One of my favorite friends growing up was a Crapo, so I didn't really think much about it when I met Rhett and found out his last name. Later when we were engaged, his oldest brother kind of apologized about it, saying it might be kind of a step down from my Irish common maiden name, Kelly. But I never really thought about it one way or the other, and actually when we first got married, I didn't really feel like it was MY name necessarily. I was of cource a Crapo now, but I didn't feel loyalty to it and would occasionally look for opportunities to make a joke. For example when asked my last name, I would say: "Crapo...spelled like Crap-0." Rhett ever thought the jokes were funny, obviously they were 23 years old to him by that time, but I got some humor out of it.

As time has passed and I've been a Crapo for 4 years, I have begun to own the name, and now my reactions are unpredictable. I try to throw people a bone, because hey--we know it looks like Crap-o, but occasionally if someone brings up one of the many jokes, I find them not funny as I once did and my fangs and claws are unleased. Such an experience happened with the General Surgeon, Dr. McIntire at work...

It as about 2am and work was going as usual. The vascular/thoracic surgeon was finishing late rounds on one of his patients in the ICU and one of the General Surgeons was also finishing up. Part of my job is taking off all the doctor's orders from the charts and after I've done everything I need to, I have to sign my name: J. Crapo. I was busy drooling as I stared at all the heart monitors wiggling their way acrosss my screens when I heard Dr. McIntire laugh (this is the first time in over a year of interactions I ever heard this man laugh) and show the patient's chart to the other surgeon. "Look at this. J. Crap-o." I think it caught me off guard or it was really late, or I'm a pregnant time bomb, but I flipped around and in the most condescending and disgusted voice I can achieve smirked: "It's pronounced Crapo." For some reason, this caught him off guard, (it is obvious that the person who signed it would be the girl sitting at the desk and at 2 am not much is usually going on, so I would obviously have heard his comment) but he said: "Really?" I gave a really teenagerish scoff and blurted: "Yah. I think I know how to pronounce my own name," dramatically spinning around in my seat and clicking my mouse vigorously at nothing.
Really, I doubt I showed him, probably make myself look immature and lame, but later I was rethinking the interaction and kind of laughing because that was probably my biggest blow up about our name being mispronounced and one of the less offensive remarks. Needless to say Dr. McIntire and I have nothing to chat about when he makes his rounds.

One bonus to having an a name everyone mis-pronounces is any call we get asking for Mr or Mrs Crap-0, we hang up and tell them they have the wrong number, because they obviously don't know us or haven't lived in Idaho (the senator is a Crapo). This hanging up on all the Crap-o callers only back fired one time I can think of when it was an important call from our car insurance trying to respond to Rhett and I hung up on them...but they usually call back if they really need us. Also sometimes it's satisfying to correct tele-marketers, surveyers, highway patrol wanting money and act totally offended and make them apologize profusely only to hang up after they do so...am I a mean person? I guess I am...but, hey, they called me.