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Dear Reader,
It will be 16 years this December that my husband and I have lived in our house, so we're not the new kids on the block any more. But we might as well be because we don't know anyone's name. We've become close friends with a husband and wife in our neighborhood and have been invited to parties at their home, numerous times, where a group of nameless people show up. In our defense (of not remembering their names) the faces rotate--the same group of nameless folks don't show up every single time.
When our hosts say, "Bob and Suzanne, have you met so-and-so?" My husband and I only commit to a smile, and wait to see if so-and-so acknowledge that they've met us.
If they have, we follow the leader, "Yes, we've met, why hello there."
If we haven't met these so-and-sos yet, we are so relived to be able to start from scratch to learn someone's name, that while we are exhaling and thanking the patron saint of names, our hosts introduce the new so-and-so's, but my husband and I weren't listening yet, so while we're shaking hands and saying,"Nice to meet you," we realize we are doomed again.
But we haven't given up hope. Every time we leave one of our neighbor's parties my husband and I play the memory game. "Okay, let's at least get two names down. The guy in the blue shirt, with the glasses, his name was Tom wasn't it? Or was it Bob in the blue shirt and Tom in the Greenpeace T-shirt?"
We thought our prayers had been answered when we were invited to our neighbor's 50th birthday party, because there were place cards on the table. Fifty guests to celebrate the big 5-0, so it was our chance to finally learn everyone's name. But for most of the evening people weren't sitting in their assigned seats, and the only place cards my husband and I could really read, without making it obvious what we were trying to do, were the ones on each side of us. But we were grateful to learn four names: Nancy and Al, and Adam and Shelley, but since Adam and Shelley moved away last week, we're down to only two, and no new ideas about how to solve our name problem.
But now that I've written this column I realize I may have created an even bigger, more embarrassing problem. What if the next time my husband and I are invited to a party at our friends' home, one of the familiar, nameless faces says to me, "Suzanne, I read your column, let me introduce myself and everyone else--we're all wearing name tags just for you."
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
www.MuffinsandMayhem.com
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