Good info to know.

I was working at the Credit Union today, as I do every day. It was a normalish day. Pretty slow, I was getting a little bored in the afternoon. Then Earl came in. Earl was a nice guy, 24 years old. Just a simple request, really, was all he had. He wanted to change the beneficiary listed on his account. Ok, simple enough. And my usual policy is to ask as few questions as possible about people's personal business. I don't like to pry. Except that he phrased his request a bit oddly. Namely, he couldn't remember the last name of his current beneficiary, who was only 1 year old. I thought this a little odd, that he had chosen an infant to recieve all his money should he pass, and yet he was not so well acquainted with the infant as to know what family he comes from. Earl remembered the last name momentarily and declared his intention to replace Tayjon with Dameree, his son. He placed a curious emphasis on saying that Dameree was "MY son," so I allowed myself a moment of nosiness, and asked whose son Tayjon was. Earl replied, with a completely straight face, and no traceable sense of shame, "Well, we thought he was my son, till we got the blood tests back."

Repressing every other instinct, I encouraged Earl that I was glad he now knew who his son was. This is good information to know. Phone number, social security number, who your children are, all good things to keep track of. Thank goodness for paternity testing.