Lessons

Yesterday, I had an interesting thing happen to me.

I was in Dalaran, taking a look at the cost of the mounts Mei Francis sells. I was there because I’m getting close to 150 mounts (I believe I’m at 126 right now) and looking for the easy ways to fill out my collection.  Besides the obvious time I need to spend at the Argent Tournament and on Netherwing rep (which will net me a cool 17 mounts, since I already have one of them from the Tournament) the purchasable mounts immediately came to mind.  I need to work on Shado-Pan and finish out Klaxxi rep, but a few purchased mounts would certainly help.

But, mounts are just the reason I was there. While I was there, a paladin whispered me, asking relatively politely if I could lend him* the money for cold-weather flying. I asked if anyone in his guild could possibly help, and he replied that no, they were mostly lower level (which I verified. I’m like that.) 

I was about to say no. But, I was out and about, spending thousands on my mount habit. He promised to pay me back. I decided to pay it forward, and went ahead and gave him 450. I know how this sort of thing works, and I didn’t want the poor boy to be without pocket money. I can pick that much cash up in an afternoon of dailies.

After we parted company, I asked him if I could ask about his toon name. And he said I could. So I asked Is it supposed to be parsed as Jo is gay, or Jois Gay? He explained that it was actually an insult to his brother.

After I digested that, and swallowed the rage that always comes up when I see gay being used as a perjorative, I said. You know, you could inadvertently hurt a lot of people’s feelings running around on a toon with that name.

And shortly thereafter, he asked if there was any way for him to change his toon’s name.   I told him the only surefire way I knew of was to pay for a name change. But later, I wondered if it would work for me to report his name… if that would get him a free pass?  But I really don’t know if just one person reporting him would work.

*I use he/him/his because the toon was a male model.