Have you ever been in line at the grocery store and you knew the person ahead of you but for the life of you, you couldn't remember their name. To not say hello would be kind of rude, but do you just yell, "Hey You!"?
This happened to me yesterday....
I entered the self check out line behind a kind neighbor who always remembers my name. I am very good at recognizing faces, however names escape me and usually do not come to mind until long after the social interaction passes. For seconds I inwardly (of course) debated......
Do I tap this person on the shoulder and say hi?
.....................Or do I act like I did not see them and when they turn around, try to act surprised....."Oh Hi!"
But then they'd surely know I'd already seen them and was either too stuck up to say hi or the truth would be known .........I can not place their name!
I tapped......hopefully it was percieved as gently and not an annoying tap....... Of course they knew my name and did not seem too alarmed to get a tap on the shoulder in the grocery.
As I was leaving I was racking my brain for their name and by that time did recall their children's names! I decided I'd rush on out to my van in case anyone saw my looney behavior and confidently stood in front of my van and proceeded to push the unlock button........ Nothing happened.......
No worries .....(and no one saw me!) I confidently pushed it again as a not so looney lady walks by and sees me in front of what obviously is not my van. I, cooly walk a bit further down the line and see my van right next to hers. I get in, laughing at myself and then I remember! Ray! The person I said "Hi" too was Ray!
So if you ever run into me at the grocery or anywhere for that matter and I don't say your name, know that inwardly I am mentally kicking myself racking my feeble brain to grasp that bit of knowledge that has your name on it! And I will think of your name later after we've talked!
7 comments:
I loved this...especially because the other day I tried & tried to unlock my van, only to realize that it was Susan T's van. Oh well!
This so made me laugh!!! I would be laughing at myself in the car too :D
LOL. I can relate to this like you wouldn't believe. Life was so stressful for me for a long peroid of time that I would forget peoples' names that I had worked with for years. I forgot SS teachers names that I taught with. I was mortified on many occasions. LOL. And I have also tried to unlock other peoples' cars too. :)
Hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day! I haven't been blogging much these days but still trying to check in.
Love you!
Cute story! Ray did come home and said he saw you at the store but never mentioned you might not have known his name -- no worries! We love you because of how sweet and kind and thoughtful and caring you are towards others - please don't change who you are one bit!!! :) (PS - I'm the worst at recalling names and am lucky I remember Ray's name!! LOL)
RJ2 is very brave and just makes up a name! But, she always says "Hi!" which is better than I can say for myself. I absolutely understand where you were. Sometimes, just being in a different environment messes with my head. (I know them from church, but we're not at church....argh!)
I have misplaced my car in the lot and done a lot of walking trying to find it. Our big problem of late has been the kids setting off the car alarm from inside the car...and then I need to remember how to shut it off. (That's when I get a bit loony!)
You will totally think I am crazy for leaving this comment...but somehow this has to relate to the fact that today all of a sudden my car doors will not unlock with the little key chain button...and are very hard to unlock even with the key...hmmm whats going on here?
Nice to know I'm not the only one who has had similar experiences with names and vehicle identifications... I also had a "laugh out loud" experience trying to unlock a van that looked EXACTLY like my own only to eventually realize it wasn't my van after all - I started questioning this after noticing how clean this van was compared to mine! These two vehicles were even parked right beside each other which made me feel a bit better about being so looney! )
Post a Comment