The story behind the name:

One evening, at the Old Broadway Grill in Fargo, North Dakota, my brother caught the end of a Mountain Dew commercial. In the commercial, a Mountain Dew drinker was riding a shark in the ocean. My brother exclaimed in surprise, not realizing that it was a commercial. When I told him he declared "All I saw was a guy coming out of the shower with a shark." Of course, he meant water, but the idea of showering with sharks has been with me ever since.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Mark is Good WIth Names

Mark is not good with names. He once introduced me as "his girlfriend... uh... KRISTEN!" Another time he forgot the name of his cousin and I had to remind him, even though I'd never met her. On one memorable occasion he answered the phone "Spectrum, Mike, uh, Mark speaking."

Sitting with him at his brother's wedding was an interesting experience. We'd been dating for about 4 months. As people went through the receiving line he would tell me where they lived, how many kids they had, how long they had either know Barb and Dave or his parents, what their jobs were, how long they had been at said job... but NO NAMES! Earlier that day I had gotten on his case for never introducing me to anyone. He response was that he would have, but he couldn't remember their names. Do you see a pattern emerging?

Anyway, this morning Mark was about to pull up in front of my building so I could get out an go to my office. A woman was walking on the sidewalk. Mark said:

"It's Diane Guilbeault-Jeans." (Sounds like the Girbaud Jeans brand).

"What?" I didn't know what he was talking about.

"That's how we remember her name in our office. Her name is Nancy Guilbeault. So we call her Guilbeault-Jeans."

"You just said her name was Diane."

Beat.

"Right. I call her Diane so that I remember her name is Nancy."

"Right." Laughing, I exit the car and head to my office where I immediately blog this story.

1 comment: