If you meet me once and I forget your name, shame on me.
If you meet me twice and I forget your name, shame on me.
If you meet me three times and I forget your name, I’m in menopause.
And when I reintroduce myself there is no need to say, “We’ve met a couple of times in the past,” because I will not have the synaptic ability to put your face with that meeting. I might respond, “Oh, yes, it’s great to see you,” but in my head I’ll have nothin’.
My husband thinks I’ve gotten more loving and romantic since I now call him things like “darlin'” and “handsome.” He doesn’t realize that I just don’t remember his name.
If there were really a name game, I’d be the big loser right now.
At my dad’s funeral many years ago, my seventy year-old uncle came into town.He had not seen me and my sister for many, many years. When he did see us standing next to each other, he immediately named us “Thing One” and “Thing Two” rather than trying to figure out our names. I found it funny, though my sister was not quite as amused.
Learning from my uncle, I am going to derive a series of substitute words that I can use in place of the names I have forgotten. Names like:
- Heeeey, as in “Heeeeey! There you are!”
- Life of the party, as in “There’s the life of the party!”
- You, as in “Look at YOU, how are you?”
- Favorite, as in “There’s my favorite person in the whole world!”
- Partner, as in “Hey, partner, how’s things hangin’?”
I think you get the point. Until my synapses begin fire to a reasonable destination again, this will be my mode of operation. I will pull from a list of endearing substition names that will make me seem both friendlier and happier to see someone. I will become Flo from the television show “Alice,” calling everyone “darlin'” and “sugar.”
It’s just hit me that this is why older couples are always calling each other endearing names like “honey” and “dear.” They’re not that loving. They’ve just forgotten each other’s names.
Anybody else out there losing the name game?