What's in a name? I don't really know because I struggle to remember them. I recently saw someone whom I knew quite well a couple of years ago but I couldn't remember their name. After my usual "Hi... there...", I stumbled through the conversation never once actually uttering the person's name. Several days later, during a mouthful of cereal, my brain decided to push the word out with milk-splattering force. After cleaning up and having DW complaining about "how the hell is this teaching the kids to eat nicely?", I promptly forgot the name again.

It did remind me of another little name calling incident at work. I met a guy named Christian who worked for another department. While I corresponded several times via email with Christian, I only spoke to him in person five or six times. Now it happens that his department is quite close to mine. So close in fact that we share kitchen and toilet facilities. Unfortunately for me, another guy started working in Christian's department who looks quite similar to Christian. At least I thought so. Now, I don't know anybody else from Christian's department so when I see them in the kitchen or toilet, I just nod and smile and so do they. Except for Christian, whom I always greet by name.

One day, I noticed he not only stopped responding, but started to look at me as if I was strange. I thought this was a little rude, so I went out of my way to speak up when greeting him. I also noticed his peers, who would usually just nod and smile at me, would now look between Christian and I with puzzled faces. Initially I figured Christian had just forgotten my name but by this time he was behaving as if he didn't know me at all. I thought it a little amusing to see him uncomfortable because if I had gone to the trouble to remember his name, which is quite difficult for me, he should be a little embarrassed at forgetting mine. I'm petty like that. Anyway, I kept this up for several months until Christian came back from a six month secondment overseas and I ran into him in the kitchen chatting with the other Christian. Putting one and one together I realised the chances of this equation equalling two Christians was pretty slim. Also, seeing them standing together, the real Christian was quite obvious. In my defence they do share some facial similarities, but on closer inspection, I realised the real Christian is actually quite a bit shorter than me, while the imposter is much taller. Actually, he is kind of freakishly tall, which should have been a give away. Anyway, I've gone back to just nodding and smiling at everyone and hoping the fake Christian thinks I just call everyone Christian, kind of like people used to use the word Pilgrim.

While that was embarrassing, mostly to Christian, another problem cropped up when I had a meeting with some colleagues. Chairing the meeting was a guy who is considerably higher up the chain than I am. I know his name because I know I might need to know his name if my department folds. Besides, Jon is fairly easy to remember. He brought along another guy whom I also know because I competed with him for the job he is now in, working for Jon. The other two guys I didn't know, but they were introduced as Carlo and Mimo. Now these seem like simple enough names, don't they?

It turns out most of my discussion in the meeting was directed to these two newcomers. I began by referring to Carlo as Craig and then Greg and then Carlos. Mimo started out as Nino and then Meno. When my own boss walked into the meeting about half way, I introduced everybody, which was an unmitigated disaster. I successfully introduced Jon and then I introduced Shiel, which is actually his surname. Fortunately, I recovered by spotting the error and correctly remembering his first name, Ian. Then I introduced Nemo and Craig. After some laughter at my expense, I avoided names for the rest of the meeting until I called Mimo "Milo" and had to apologise again. At least I no longer call my own boss Dick.

I'm not good with names. For the first few weeks of Little Man's life, I called him "whats his face" and Princess was "the little bald one". I'm better now but I still get their names mixed up. At least I never make a mistake, you know, at critical moments in my marriage, most likely because at times like those, I can't even remember my own name or even words. And just for the record, while I have never actually used DW's name in my blog, I think she has a very pretty name.

Ciao!

Thought for the Day: Doors are like gateways to whole other places. You never know what you're going to find until you go through. Unless you just pop your head in, or maybe they are glass doors or you were just in there.