Bossy Names

My boss at work for the past ten years has been a guy whose name happens to be Aaron. My wife of the past four years is a lovely lady whose name happens to be Erin. On the surface it doesn't seem like there would be anything funny about this, but it has become not only confusing, but in some situations dangerous to my employment.

You don't know the funny looks I get when I say things like "So I was talking to Erin in bed last night." If they don't know my wife, I just get a confused, judgmental stare, or the guys that know Erin come up with clever quips like "So that's why you get those great evaluations, eh?"

This horror of homonyms (take that, English teacher wifey!) has led me to always appending "boss" or "wife" to the my sentences. So I say things like "Boss Aaron asked me this morning if Purdue just gives an engineering degree to everyone who asks for one" or "Wife Erin asked me to stop teaching Grant to laugh when he passes gas." One rather astute co-worker informed me that in reality, this approach is a poor one since I really have two Boss-Aaron/Erin's, therefore "Boss Aaron" doesn't really help narrow down to which commander-in-chief I'm referring. I guess he's right. The boss at my next job will probably be named Grant...