Recently I ran into a friend of my husband’s. Not a best friend, but not merely an acquaintance, either. When he saw me, he smiled and said, “Hey, Mrs. S!” just as he has for almost twenty years, with the cheekiness of a long-standing inside joke.
Yeah. He doesn’t remember my name.
I’d never call him on it, of course. I just smile and wave. For one thing, my husband’s horrible with names and I know how bad he feels about it. And I’m also pretty easy-going about my name. I’ve had to be since my last name has been a girl’s first name for almost two decades. Sometimes, when people call me “Stacey”, they’ll later feel bad and apologize. I honestly rarely even notice and I answer to both. And, mostly, because it’s probably not his fault. There’s a good chance he could count the number of times he’s heard my name on one hand because my husband doesn’t use my name. He calls me “my wife”.
I’ll talk to my wife and…
The wife and I are going to…
Let me ask my wife and…
When we go to Anaheim in July, I want to put a sticker on his shirt that says “Hello, my name is…Shannon’s husband”.
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Oh that would be awesome!
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I had a soccer coach that called me Stacy for 2 years! LOL I’ve had enough people call me Stacy over the years that I answer to it. When people realize it they always apologize profusely. For some reason it just doesn’t bother me. I know they know who I am, just are not good with names.
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We have a Cubmaster that can not get people’s names right for love or money. It is bothersome to me because I can’t usually see to whom he is pointing. As in “go see Julia (should be Juliana) to sign up for show & sell.”
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HAH! You should totally make that your husband’s name tag!
Stacey is popular. It must be, because sometimes people call me Stacey. O.o Guess I look like I should be one?
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My dad’s horrible at names, too. And he used to be in the movie biz, so each show would have about 100 people he’d deal with, and over time, that’s a lot of people he’d work with.
When I went to work with him, I figured out real quick that when we’d be on the lot, if he met up with someone and couldn’t remember their name, he’d just casually step in front of me. Kinda like I was some random young girl following him around Warner Bros. LOL So I learned to just step around “hi, nice to meet you! I’m Lynda, Tommy’s daughter.” LOL Then they’d introduce themselves to me, and problem solved! It was funny, because he’d always remember WHERE he knew them from, and things they did, or what their jobs were, but he could never remember their names.
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My husband always calls me his wife too. I always wonder why….
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First of all, I agree with the Anaheim plan…go for it!
I have called my hubby on the very same thing. He never uses my name. It can be irritating.
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Sometimes I tease him that he does because, after twenty years, he’s still terrified he’ll get my name wrong.
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If my husband uses my name, I know he is displeased.
Two family name stories.
My husband has a friend from law school that he has known 30 plus years. Our kids happen to go to the same small private school. Each and every time he sees me, he introduces himself. Since our kids have been at this school for 12 years with our kids becoming close enough friends where they hang out at each other’s homes, it is getting a little annoying. His wife finally said, when you see Matt, assume Renda is the woman with him and don’t introduce yourself to her ever again.
Then I have a cousin who has been married three, yes, three times. His first wife was Angela, whom he called Angel. Well, fast forward a few years and my mom tells me he has remarried to another Angela. I thought that was weird, since they are from a small Alabama town and who knew there were so many Angelas. Well, here comes the third marriage to an Angela. So I am thinking, okay, it was a popular name in this small town in the late 50s.
Well, then comes the girlfriend, after the third divorce, named Barbara. So I jokingly said to my mom, he seems to have run through all the Angelas in town. That’s when I found out that no, only the first one was Angela. He called the others “Angel” just so he wouldn’t screw up their names. Barbara was the only one to take exception to that and the only one who stuck more than 15 years.
(Yes, my cousin was a bit of a hound. But in one of those Karma situations, he had his penis nailed to his leg in a nasty nail gun accident on the job. It is my belief there were three Angels that laughed long and hard when hearing about it.)
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Oh, I came on here via SBTB. Thrilled to see that you are printing your books. I have them all in e, but I would like a couple in print for my keeper shelf, so I can page to the sections I want to and just savor them.
Love your short stories, too, and I am not a short story fan.
Glad to have found your blog.
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Those are awesome name stories, LOL. (Although, I kind of read the nail gun/penis part through my fingers while cringing.)
And thanks so much for the kind words about about my books! I’m glad you’re enjoying them! And thank you for wanting them in print, too.
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I am terrible with names- but mostly for people I should know! I once forgot my stepbrother’s name for an entire weekend- I was starting a sentence- ” I am going to play poker at D…’s house” and completely blanked. Spent the next three days running through all of the D names I could think of and couldn’t remember. People look at me funny when I must name someone, so I structure my sentences so I generally don’t use names! Most people don’t notice (or at least not consciously).
I don’t like it when someone uses my name directly, and it is a major irritant when a sales person chucks it in every sentence.
Really enjoying your books, although they have resulted in an extremely unproductive work day (including being on this site). Bought exclusively yours on special this morning, read a quarter on the bus and have been trying to find excuses so I can duck off with the Kindle for a few minutes.
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I have worked in factories for what seems like eons and temporary help is a given. Hence I can’t remember names to save my soul. Faces, though, that I’m good at.
When I picked a writing name part of it was due to working in factories. Jewell is actually my married name but I use it as a first name for writing. Men tend to forego first names in plants (no idea why) so I knew if anyone called from across the room, “Hey Jewell,” I’d respond no matter what. LOL