Kate Can Cook

I often have trouble distinguishing between people who have similar physical characteristics, and remembering people whom I’ve already met. When I see someone approaching me, I don’t just get nervous about remembering his or her name (I never can), but also remembering whether I *should* be able to remember his or her name. If the person is wearing the same or similar outfit, however, I can normally gauge whether or not I’ve met them.

I call this “the comic strip character hypothesis.”

Do you know why most comic strip/book creators keep their characters in the same outfits? It’s because of people like me. I would get so confused and infuriated… is this guy Batman or Robin? I can’t tell, because they’re both wearing pants and polos.

My theory is that my eyes/brain attaches onto something distinguishing about a person (normally clothing) to help me remember the person, which actually helps me forget. So, let’s say that I met a chick who had the same Etnies as me. If she were to then go barefoot, I may have no idea who she was. BUT if she were to have, say, beautiful naturally red hair, I’d remember her. (This is actually a true account of how I remembered my now-friend Cheri.)

I say all of this because, for a long time, I thought I was just being dumb or lazy.

So, yesterday we had our annual work picnic. I got there late and sat at a table with the new interns, whom I had not met until this point. I sat next to Tom* and across from Tim.*

It turns out that both Tom and Tim had been invited, by a co-worker, to go to a meeting today that I was also going to attend. The three of us spent the next, oh, 45+ minutes talking about the meeting (who was going, when we were leaving, etc.), sports, nerdy things (I even managed to sneak in a Highlander reference**), and which state is the best state in the country.

I know where you think this is going, but you’d be wrong.

So this morning, I show up at our meeting spot with the boss, the co-worker, and Tom and Tim. We’re chatting and then Tom turns to me, holds out his hand, and says,

“I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Tom.”

I looked at him and started laughing. I said, “No, we met at the picnic yesterday.”

“We did?”

“I, um, I sat next to you at lunch, didn’t I?”

Tim chimes in with, “Yeah, Kate and I were talking about how Pennsylvania was the best state in the country and you disagreed?”

Tom says, “Oh, that was you?”

Stinkin’ interns.

*Names changed to protect the innocent.

**Highlander reference: One of the judges of the bake-off came over the ask the moderator of the contest whether there could be two winners. The moderator said no, to which I added, “We have Highlander bake-offs. There can be only one.”