Poor, poor Rachael Ray

I feel for Rachael Ray. Yeah, you heard me right. The bubbliest, perkiest, most annoying domestic cocktease since Denise Austin (who's so happy I'm convinced there's pathology there) gets my sympathy. Now, I know that the woman is set for life...if she never set food on another Food Network soundstage or wrote another cookbook, she'd be just fine.

It's that damned letter "a." Her parents, like so many nowadays, couldn't leave well enough alone and name her simply Rachel. Nope. Let's throw in a rogue letter that makes no sense to ensure the misery of our dear daughter, and to ensure that, despite her best attempts, people will forevermore be misspelling her name (to the tune of 1.3 million "Rachel Ray" misspellings listed on Google, people).

Probably anyone outside of "John Smith" can relate. I certainly can. I got so sick of people misspelling my name that when I got to college, I finally created a smartass retort to those sorry twerps. "Just like the Biblical character, only with an 's' at the end." Especially at a religious school, I figured that'd work. Except for one thing...these stupes misspelled the Biblical character, too. Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Okay. Gotta back up here. Back in my spelling heyday, if anyone tried to foist someone's random name on me and dare me to spell it correctly, I'd claim immunity. (Still do, in fact, except that hardly anyone asks me, 20 championship spellers down the road.) There are so many variations to so many names that any attempt is doomed to failure. Words that have been in the dictionary for years and years, that's one thing. Names that end up having variations dreamed up by sadistic parents, that's another.

Hollywood parents lately have jumped on the "let's give our kids the dorkiest names we can so we can prove how Very Creative we are" bandwagon, and I pray, PRAAY that the rest of America doesn't follow suit. I really don't feel the need to go out of my way and find a link to emphasize this for ya, so Google yerselves silly, kids. But just one name: Shiloh Pitt. For all the piles o' shit that poor girl is gonna have to slog through for the rest of her life (and if she lives through middle school and high school, I'm buying her tell-all), her dumbfuck mom and dad deserve to do years of hard labor. (And Brad? A double sentence for abandoning Jennifer Aniston for that condescending celebutante who makes Greta Garbo seem approachable. And hey, Jen? You can pose nude for GQ again any ol' time you want. Yes, this is a gay man saying this. My straight brothers will totally back me on this, though.)

So my heart goes out to Rachael, but just for that one thing. And I wish a balsam-wood door slamming on her parents' heads for giving her a craptacular name. Oh yeah, and the same for her thousands, maybe millions of fans who adore her, know her, and can't get her damned name right, even though it's visible everywhere.