Ich bin ärgerlich

So when I moved to the UK, I found myself surrounded by Germans. Well OK, surrounded is the wrong word, there's only three of them and there's other folk, but I find myself interacting with them more than the rest of the group. And they're really nice, really polite dudes. And, surprise surprise, they are all really really funny. And by funny, I mean serious comedic value. Which isn't usually associated with the folks from the Vaterland.

I decided I need to learn some Deutsch to fit in, plus there's the whole trip to Berlin coming up and it would be great to speak to the natives. But as a first step in my germanificiation, I decided to throw in an umlaut every now and then. Starting with my name.

So these days, I'm called Khälid. Then I realized its technically a name change and I need to change all my documents, don't want to be dragged into the courts later since I've already incorporated this into Facebook.

So I started calling up various people to correct their records.

"Oh hi, I'm calling because I need to make a change in my personal information"
"Thank you sir, and what might that change be?"
"Well, its my name"
"Right sir, we have you listed as a Khalid Siddiqui. What is that changed to?"
"Well actually its still Khalid Siddiqui but my first name is spelt differently"
"So we have it as K-H-A-L-I-D"
"No thats incorrect"
"Ah, ok, so I suppose its K-H-A-L-E-D? Sorry about that sir."
"No its not that either"
"Oh, OK. I'll let you spell it out for me then"
"Its K-H-Ä-L-I-D"
"But thats what I just said"
"No you said A, I said Ä"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Its Ä not A"
"I don't get the difference"
"Mine has an umlaut"
"A what?"
"An umlaut"
"An omelette?"
"Are you making fun of my name, miss?"
"I'm sorry sir, but thats what we have on record. I don't get what you're saying. What's an omelette got to do with this?"
"Can I speak to your supervisor please?"....

I can see this isn't going to be easy.