My name is Casey Campbell and I have a problem.

I'm not an alcoholic and this isn't Step 1 of a program meant to help me kick my addiction to vitamin C, but they say the first step on the road to recovery is to admit you have a problem. So here it is: I am perpetually in the midst of an identity crisis.

Although it may sound like a classic case of denial, this is not my fault. Really. While I admit to having moments where I seem more like a stunned orangutan than an intelligent human being, I can safely say I have a firm grasp on who I am. Casey, age 23, reporter, Pisces. Simple.

No, the trouble with my identity is that no one besides me can get it straight. Not in the adolescent "no one understands the Real Me" sense (I shed that teenage angst weeks ago), but in the literal sense - nobody knows who the heck I am.

Case(y) in point: anytime I'm making calls for work, I start by introducing myself with some variant of "Hello, this is Casey Campbell. I'm a reporter with the Cooperstown Crier." In print, this is obviously impossible to misinterpret. On the phone, however, the garbled translation of what I say apparently sounds like "Hullo thisizz Keithy Cambole from da Cooperstown Crier."

As you might expect, return calls bound for me are almost always addressed to Keith, Jason, Chris or "some guy I couldn't understand."

It pains me so to admit any of this confusion might be my fault, but I suppose some of the blame does lie in my inability to enunciate. Particularly when I'm on the phone, I tend to slur my words, rendering them unintelligible.

On top of this, I'm not exactly Einstein when it comes to verbally expressing myself. I generally need a moment to arrange my thoughts into some sort of coherent response. Failure to do so results in meaningless babble that inevitably trails off into nothingness. A key reason why I am a writer, not an orator.

Not that I really mind the misnomers. I don't take myself so seriously that something this minor bothers me. In fact, I've always gotten a kick out of mistaken identity situations.

Once while passing through a gas station on Oneonta's south side, the cashier thought I worked at 84 Lumber and asked me if I had seen his friend Bill or his red truck.

Rather than explain that no I hadn't seen Bill, his truck or even the inside of 84 Lumber ever in my life, I simply said "Nope, didn't see him," paid for my gas and left.

Another time, as I left a gas station by myself after buying a soda, a car with two older women pulled up to the pump. The driver rolled down her window as I was about to pass and asked me to fill it with regular, mistaking me for a gas station attendant.

I wish this anecdote had a different ending, one in which I slapped on a jaunty smile, filled their tank and happily pocketed their cash, but sadly I must report that I was so dumbfounded that I just stammered something about being Keithy Cambole, just an innocent passer-by.

One of my favorite mistaken identity stories comes from college where my androgynous name saved me once.

Halfway through a three-hour night class, I decided I had had enough. During the five-minute midpoint break, I bolted.

The next day I heard that as soon as I had left, the professor has asked for me by name. She didn't know exactly who I was though, because I was told she asked the class if anyone knew where "she" (meaning me) was.

As enjoyable as it is to ponder these quasi-existential matters, you'll have to excuse me now, I've got to take a phone call.

Hello? Yes, Cassie Gambose, 23, reporter, at your service.