Columnist Susan Snyder: Piloting the S.S. confusion

Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2002 | 8:13 a.m.

By the time you read this, I will be on vacation.

Don't weep. I'll be back in this spot Aug. 19. (Now there's a reason to bawl.)

But I need a vacation. This town just ain't big enough for all of us Susan Snyders anymore. There are too many living here. (Some would say there is only one too many, and she has a newspaper column. We don't like those people.)

For some reason, "Susan" was the perfect match for "Snyder" in maternity wards across the nation in the 1950s and 1960s. There was one other baby with the exact same moniker in the hospital when I was born.

Undoubtedly, my older brother wished at times Mom had brought home the other one. But he also wished she had brought home a dragon instead of a baby.

Anyway, there has been at least one other Susan Snyder in every town I have resided. I was given her prescription in Indiana, her wrong numbers in Florida and her dry cleaning in Utah.

In Clearwater, Fla., where I worked as a police reporter for a small newspaper, an editor sent me to talk with the family of a woman who died in a traffic accident.

Her name?

I am not kidding. And I will come clean now. I did not go to the door. I sat outside and drank coffee for an hour before going back to the office and telling the city editor no one was home.

But by far, having too many Susan Snyders has been more interesting in this valley than anywhere else.

One of us, who goes by "Susi," is an anti-nuclear activist. I'm in the newspaper more often, but her press is way more fun. A couple of years ago she was taken into police custody at an anti-nuke rally.

The next day my phone was jammed with calls from friends who said, "Hey, I read about how you were arrested."

Alas, it wasn't me. For the record, if I ever am arrested it will be for wigging out because Petsmart has run out of Friskies Senior Turkey and Giblets cat food.

Or I will have stripped naked, painted myself orange and paraded down State Road 159 with a traffic cone affixed to my head in protest of the 60-mph speed limit through Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

The Sprint telephone book lists one Susan Snyder and four "S" Snyders. Maybe one of these is the Susan Snyder who called Capital One two weeks ago and reported my Visa card as fraudulent.

Evidently, she freaked when the Oregon company from which I ordered a custom-built bicycle sent the invoice to her instead of me.

How the company found a different address I may never know. Representatives are afraid to return any more of my phone calls.

How Capital One believed her without obtaining my Social Security number or my mother's maiden name, I may never know. Representatives are afraid to return any more of my phone calls.

Girls, we are in this together. So think.

When I get calls about anti-nuke rallies I figure they're looking for Susi Snyder out in Pahrump.

If you receive inquiries from people about bicycles, offensive newspaper writing or a large white cat that beat up a Pomeranian, send them my way.

Your identity hasn't been stolen. You simply share it with more of us than you wish.