How to speak to an operator

"Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "yes thats G as in... (10 seconds)... umm... Goonies!"

This is a hysterical comment from a blog of random thoughts from 25-35 year olds. Of course, this rings very true when I try to spell out names, especially to a 411 operator. Just yesterday I was asking the operator for a phone number of a place called Panini Cafe. As usual, I spell out the words for him. However, my mind drew a blank on the first letter- I said- "P as in... Panini!" Yea, that's sure to be helpful. So I decided to make a list of easy words that clearly correlate to each letter of the alphabet so that the operator will understand us. Now we can study this list and never draw a blank again! (I actually had to go through a dictionary to find appropriate and clear words)

A- apple
B- banana
C- cat
D- dog
E- elephant
F- father
G- gift or garden or giraffe
H- happy
I- ice
J- jack in the box
K- kangaroo
L- ladder
M- mother
N- nose
O- octopus
P- present
Q- quilt
R- radio
S- sun
T- teddy
U- umbrella
V- violin
W- water
X- x-ray
Y- yogurt
Z- zebra