From The Storyteller
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August 21, 2018, Name Tags
It is time to share the curse of the name tag. I am standing in yet another doorway with three, casually dressed women ahead of me. The table in front of us has the stick-on, write your name in marker, name tags. There is one marker, and silently I await my turn. When the third woman is finished she hands me the marker, pats her name tag onto her purse, and says, “Hi Doug”. I am clueless as to who this person is. My response, “Morning”, is a stall. I lean over to complete my name tag, hoping to catch a glimpse of the name tag she put on her purse. It is gone! It has fallen off the purse and is now under the table. Act of chivalry to the rescue. Bending over and reaching under the table, I snag the name tag. As I hand it to her I discover all she wrote is “SUE – Lubbock”. Well that narrows it down to 20-30,000 people. Finally my failure to recognize this person, who knows me by name, requires a confession. “Sue, I’m so bad with names; you know my name but for the life of me, I can’t remember yours.” When she tells her last name panic is beginning to set in as I’m still drawing a total blank. Confronted now with total memory melt down, my confession expands. “Sue, I’m new to Lubbock and have met so many great new people, could you remind me where we’ve met?” She smiles and sweetly tells me, “We’ve never met before. I just saw the plastic name tag on your shirt and said, 'Hi'.” The curse - Being confused while trying to recall the names and faces of the people who call you by name. Moral: It is not always a faulty memory. |