>Whooooo Are You? Who? Who? Who? Who?

>I was at the grocery a few weeks ago when I noticed that one woman kept smiling broadly at me every time our paths crossed. Hesitantly, I finally smiled back. Who the hell was she?

“Hi,” she said as I passed her in the frozen foods. “How’s that sweet baby?”

Instinctively, I put my hand to my neck. How did she know about my baby?

“She’s fine,” I croaked, before wheeling my cart around and hightailing it out of there.

It wasn’t until I got into my car that I realized that the woman was my two-doors-down neighbor. Who brings me cookies at Christmas time. And talks to me when we run into each other out on the street. And made me dinner after I had Baby. I hadn’t even recognized her.

It is one thing to not be able to put a name with a face. Often I can’t put a face with anything. It’s all one big mental block in my mind.

I try to cover up my memory failure by smiling and waving at everyone who even looks at me. Or sometimes, I’ll just squint at people, like I really need glasses. But I imagine that acquaintances can still read the panic in my eyes and hear the quaver in my voice when I try to say hello even though I don’t recognize them. In fact, I know they can. Just ask Joe.

I ran into Joe last summer at a neighborhood picnic. He said hi, I said hi. We stood idly chatting for about 30 seconds before I realized he was a photographer I’d worked with a few times about two years ago. After talking for a few minutes, I said goodbye and went back to my family.

Two weeks later, Joe worked with a friend of mine.

“I saw Lucinda a few weeks ago,” he said. “She was so cold to me. I couldn’t believe it. She barely even looked at me.”

Now that obviously wasn’t true, but I do think his tall tale stemmed from the fact that he could tell I didn’t recognize him and it bruised his ego. It made me wonder how many others I’ve pissed off over the years without realizing it.

The worst part is that there’s really not much I can do about it. I can’t think of any easy solution, although I can think of one man who thought he’d come up with something.

When I worked in television news in South Carolina, my podunk station got a new news director. We weren’t expecting Dilbert to come in the front door, but that’s what we got. He had short blonde hair that stuck straight up in the air, horn rimmed glasses and he lovvvved gadgets. He wasn’t much of a people person either, which became clear the moment he arrived.

“Hi, I’m Scott.” Our eager chief photographer wanted to be the first to shake the ND’s hand.

“Hold it right there,” the ND said, holding up his wrist in front of Scott’s face. “There. Now where’s my office?”

All day long, this scenario played out over and over. Everyone who tried to introduce themselves got the old wrist-in-the-face response. And not much else. We wondered among ourselves what this dude was up to. Was he afraid of shaking hands? Was he displaying some sort of Trekkie greeting? We couldn’t figure it out.

A few days later, I was sitting in his office when I mentioned Scott’s name.

“Scott?” he said in confusion. “Who’s Scott again?”

“He’s our chief photographer,” I said patiently.

“Wait a second.” The News Director looked down at his watch and pressed a few buttons. “Nope. No. No. Huh. Is it this guy?” He turned his wrist toward me. There on the dial was a picture of Scott’s surprised face.

“Your watch takes pictures?” I asked.

“Yep,” he said proudly, scrolling through a series of angry and embarrassed-looking photos of my co-workers.

I would not advise any of you to try this particular memory method. Particularly if you’re not planning to let people know what you’re up to as you snap away.

But what’s a girl to do? I’m pretty much resigned to getting the “antisocial bitch” label from people who don’t know me very well. Maybe it’s better than the “zero-recall moron” label they’d give me if they knew the truth.