What Was Your Name Again?

Now we all know that I’m über forgetful. But I am working on it. I’s taking me some B12 vitaminos and drinking some ginkgo bilbolabilobia whatever tea.

Alas, it seems I have an especially acute aversion to names.

People’s names, that is.

Oh yeah, all is well and good and I’m super smiley and polite and toss peeps a good handshake when I first meet them.
But something quite peculiar comes over me when they divulge their name. No matter how hard I try to listen, try to pay attention, try to memorize...my brain simply rejects names.
Picture an hourglass. To me, names are like them there grains of sand, passing on through. Slipping on by. In one side and right out the other.

Thomas.Carly.Emily.Michael.Sabrina.Justin.Trevor.Allison. Bye, bye!

It’s really pretty awful. I can.not.retain. I am retention-retarded. And it’s embarrassing.

The worst, the absolute positive worst is when I’m being introduced person by person to a big group. Oh this one and that one. I’m obviously polite. But there’s a secret I keep to my super snarky self: that gleaming smile I plaster on my face is so big and broad, not because I’m so very super friendly, but because I am laughing so hard at my ridiculous forgetfulness.
There’s nothing to do but laugh. It’s so goddamn hilarious! My nada-name-retention-retardation is so outrageously horrific, I can’t even remember names of characters on TV shows that I’ve been watching for years.
I’m a diseased person, I tell you. Diseased. My brain is putt-putting and petering our right before my very eyes - er, behind them I suppose.

I turn green with envy in the presence of people who remember names.

The waiter’s name? Yeah right.
The new coworker’s name? Ha.

The guy I woke up in bed next to? Fat chance.

(Just joshing! Oh it was Josh, duh!)

No but for reals. It is a full on disability. Why can’t people walk around with their names taped to their foreheads?

And yes, I do mean foreheads - while it may be convenient to pin or hang or tape your name to your chest, looking down to figure out someone’s name is a bit too obvious. And not just a little insulting.

Either that or I need some sort of computer chip installed in my head - one that registers faces and sends a signal to my brain, à la Morse code, to remind me of the person’s name.

Oh I don’t know what’s worse - forgetting someone’s name or calling them by a wrong name.

I suppose they’re equally bad - at least for me. Cause either way, if you tell me your name, I shall undoubtedly, 100%, without fail be counted upon to forget it.