Names have always been a problem with me. I am convinced that if I met an eight-foot tall convict named Igor with a purple mohawk, an eyepatch and "Born To Loose" tattooed on his forehead backwards because he had done the tattoo himself and it had looked fine when he checked it in the mirror - I would not remember this man's name the first five times I ran into him. With less remarkable people it takes a lot longer for me to remember their name.

Not that I tell them this. You know the routine. You're standing in line at the bank, waiting to cash your paycheck, and you're doing bank mathematics. Not the standard mathematics where you figure out how much money you have, but bank mathematics. You look at the ten people ahead of you, check what they've got in their hands, and figure out how long you're going to have to wait. Okay, the person at the front of the line is clutching a deposit slip and a check; that's two minutes. The next person is carrying a bankbook and looking nervous; first-time bankbook, that's five minutes while the teller explains what he's supposed to do. And so on, and you get it figured out perfectly until the little old lady in front of you whips out her financial records for the past seventy years and wants the bank to balance it.

And so you're standing in line, trying not to look at the other people, when this person walks in the door, grins ear to ear, throws his arms around you and says "Ferrett? It is you! My God, it's so great to see you! How are you doing?"

A rational person would say, "I would be glad to see you too if I had the slightest idea who the hell you are," and get that out of the way first thing. But no, we're all human beings; we figure if somebody is glad to see us we better not screw it up. So we don't ask.

And we would honestly like to tell this person how we're doing, but we don't know what we should tell him. You don't tell the same things about your life to everybody. You tell your friends different things about you than you do your relatives. You want to make sure that you're not telling your rabbi how great last night's pork dinner was.

And you also want to be sure you aren't giving him any facts that would let him know right away you don't know him. I mean, you don't want to say, "Well, I'm doing pretty good. I quit my job at the Dairy Queen last year...." and have him say, "I know. I was your manager, schmuck."

So what do you do? You swat the ball back into his court. "I'm fine. How are you?"

And you hope like hell that he gives you some clue who he is.

But if that doesn't work, you still have to talk to him, because you're stuck in line and can't say, "Well, I have to go cash a check now." You are cashing a check. And you're praying that somebody in front of you will have a fatal heart attack and die, because then you can get your money and get out.

So you listen to him and try to weasel his name out of him so you can at least sound like you know him. I have found this is easy with Italian men in particular, because they always tell stories in the third person. An Italian man will say, "So he says to me, 'Tony! Why are you lifting that tow truck by hand!' and I said......" and for the rest of the conversation it's Tony, Tony, so glad to see you Tony.

Tony.

But if not, you again have to fake it. And by now everybody in the bank except for this one guy knows you have no idea who he is. Because you're saying "dude" where you would normally be saying his name. Or you're coughing every time it comes up. And every single person in that bank, including the tellers and the managers and the guy who never sleeps because he watches you through the security camera twenty-four hours a day, taking down your name every time you make a funny face into the camera - they are all thanking God they are not you.

So you wait in line and talk and eventually you get to be free. And the next time you see this person, you know exactly who he is - he's the guy you didn't know at the bank. He's Tony. And you remember what you talked with him about last time and talk about that. "Oh yeah, I've been cashing my checks pretty well, actually."

I'm not saying who they are, but there are at least three people in my life I have no idea how I met. But I kept meeting them so often that eventually I felt obligated to take them out to lunch. Now I talk to them at least once a week, and we're really good friends now, but I will never in my life ask them where in hell I know them from.

And incidentally? - I was out with my girlfriend one day, who is the sort who never forgets anyone's name. And she walked into J.C. Penney's, grinned ear to ear, and hugged this stranger. I watched as this stranger fumbled for names, which I helpfully provided, and conversation topics, which I helpfully provided. As we left, I asked my girlfriend where she knew this person, and she told me they were in the same Kindergarten class.

I don't feel guilty anymore.

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