Soup’s bland? Really? You say that right in front of me?

I ran into Kaila on my way into the cafeteria at work. She was on her way out, sipping from a tiny plastic sample cup of soup.

“Is that your lunch?” I asked. “No,” she said. “I wanted a snack, but this soup is bland.”

“Really?” I asked, my hands on my hips. “Right in front of me?”

I do this a lot, feign outrage when someone uses my last name as an adjective. I mean, it is an adjective but come on, there are other words that substitute just fine.

Realizing what I meant, Kaila cracked up.

I tell her that the same thing had happened just the night before.

Lisa and Arch were coming over for dinner. I had zucchini roasting in the oven and a spicy red sauce bubbling on the stove. Lisa is a vegan, so she always brings a dish to share.

“I’m disappointed that my curry turned out bland,” Lisa announced when she arrived.

“Really?” I had asked her, my hands on my hips as always. “In my own home?”

Kaila gets it — her last name is White. We talked about how people use our last names as puns or punchlines. We chuckle and pretend we haven’t heard that one before. Not really. We’ve heard that one. We’ve heard all of them.

As I got my lunch I thought about how years ago I had T-shirts made for my family with the definition of bland right out of the Random House College Dictionary on the front:

❚ 1. pleasantly gentle or agreeable.

❚ 2. soothing or balmy, as air.

❚ 3. nonirritating, as food or medicines.

For obvious reasons, I left off No. 4 (non-stimulating, as medicines) and No. 5 (lacking in interest, liveliness, individuality, etc.).

Honestly, I like my last name. Mostly, I’ve been told that it doesn’t suit me. Meanwhile, I got the soup. Kaila was right. It was bland.