“Hey, Stinky.”
“What up, Stumpy?”
I’ve called Mary early this morning – too early, apparently, for us to be concerned with calling each other by our real names.
It is one my personal downfalls – an area where I have the opportunity for growth, some might say – being quite bad with names. I blame it on the number of times we moved as children.
My brother, too, has this hole in his social education. We hear/remember what we deem to be important and leave the rest.
“Hey! Pearl! I saw that guy again the other day.”
“What guy?”
“Oh, you know. What’s-his-lips. The guy with the teeth.”
“And the finger?”
“Yep.”
The best part of that conversation, of course, is that I could repeat it to my sister and she’d say, “Oh, yeah! DuWayne! How’s he doin’?”
DuWayne, by the way, is doing fine; and while he’s still missing that finger, he’s thinking of getting front teeth.
And so while I am very good at remembering faces/dance moves/musical preferences, I’m pretty bad at names.
I’m not alone.
Mary’s Jon refers to anyone he can’t remember as “Fuzzy”.
“Mary! Did Fuzzy call?”
Heavy sigh from Mary. She suffers, this one. “Which Fuzzy?”
“Fuzzy Number One. The big Fuzzy.”
She rolls her eyes at me, a smile on her lips. She shakes her head ever so slightly. “Jon, so help me, I’m gonna come over there…”
He winks at me. “Fuzzy! The Fuzzy with the 2002 Chrysler Sebring bumper cover in our living room.”
Jon, a man in blurring, dizzying motion, has hijacked their tiny living room with a replacement bumper cover for one of his many automotive-repair clients.
Mary manages to laugh and threaten him at the same time. “Oh, my God, Jon, I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna kill you, then I’m gonna make you supper, and then I’m gonna kill you again.”
Jon laughs.
And you can almost hear him thinking:
What’d she just say about supper?
.jpg)
15 comments:
Is that "Make you dinner" as in "Fried Green Tomatoes" BBQ?
LOL I love how the only word he heard was "supper" :)
Our listening skills are so based on what we wish to hear and recall. Very selective!
The guy with the teeth. Ha!!!
Pearl, you have a seriously warped and creative mind... but you know that, don't you?
Thanks, I needed the laugh.
Bumper cover? You mean the car bra?
I wish we had friends like Jon and Mary.
I wish we had friends.
I'm horrible with names too. It's not that I'm inconsiderate. It's just that when I first meet someone I'm too busy judging them to pay any attention to their name.
What would be awesome is if someone he referred to as 'Fuzzy' had a last name of Navel.
At our breakfast diner this morning the owner mentioned we should watch for her niece who is in the top 24 on American Idol. When we left Carol said she would look for (insert name of contestant here). I told Carol I only remember her name because we've known each other for forty years.
A priceless gem, Pearl. Better than the one you told about Ol' WhatsIzbucket.
Most of the people I know are fuzzy. And then there are the men! Ha!
..and so I have to ask, are names all that important anyway Penny?
When the memory is fuzzy, that name can be a replacement for any name. I'm with Mary's fuzzy what his name.
Intrigued by your memory of dance steps...
Hubby and my dad have a habit of calling men who's name they can't remember "Ralph" and girls "whatshername" yeah why is it that us females don't get a name other then "whateshername" oh well my father would often call me Jeannie, Sue, Sandra you know who you are.....lol
Post a Comment