In 1981, I moved to California’s Bay Area and took up full-time employment at Chaosium. Our favorite game store was Games of Berkeley, affectionately simply called “Gob” by us. Just checked and lo and behold it seems to be in the same spot after all these years. Well done, Gob. I don’t know if Gob itself is still owned by Don R., who now runs a major games distributor and also manufactures dice — you can see him at any major gaming convention (I always say hi!).

Anyway when I first arrived in the Bay Area naturally I went looking for the best game store, and walked into Games of Berkeley.

I introduced myself as Sandy Petersen, author of the newly-released Call of Cthulhu RPG and the clerk immediately replied, “No you’re not. She was in here last week.” 

I enquired further, and it turns out that some lady had showed up and said she was Sandy Petersen, author of Call of Cthulhu. She’d even signed copies of the book for people! Sadly I never met the lady, so the Case of the False Sandy is still unsolved. I’m now well known enough that I suspect most people know I’m male in any case, plus my mug is all over the internetz.