Miss Peach

This is actually a nickname my father had for me when I was younger, based on that Sesame Street character that forgets everything. Like him, I had trouble remembering things, like my graphing calculator and books for homework and school shoes. (How I lost my penny loafers, I will never know.) I was always leaving one book or another that I needed in my locker at school, and we lived 45 minutes and three freeways away. There was NO way I would have told my mom about it—this is one of those things that would have really set her off, and I would be in, as we call it in our household, “big T trouble”.

My father, however, could usually swing by my school on his way home from work, and so I’d call him at least once a week, whisper, “Dad? It’s Miss Peach. Don’t tell Mom, but I forgot X textbook in my locker and I have a quiz tomorrow. Will you pick it up for me?” He became quite friendly with Willie, our school’s gatekeeper, who would apparently greet him by saying, “So, which book did she forget today?” The other amusing part is that as an only child, my dad always found it to be hilarious that I would identify myself—because who else called him dad?

The other side of this, though, is that my parents also call me “old elephant brain”. Not exactly the most charming name, I know, but it is dead on—I have an uncanny ability to remember faces and names, or where we parked the car, or what someone was wearing to a certain event. This has been extremely helpful to my mom, who apparently relied on my four-year-old self to find the car after we’d been at the mall, and who will still call me on the way to a party to ask what Susie’s mom’s new husband’s name is, again?

So given that I rarely forget a name or a face, it follows that I find it extremely annoying that others don’t have such a memory. Now, I know I’m probably a bit more sensitive to it since I have this knack for remembering, but I’ve long suspected that I must be completely forgettable. In fact, I’m positive it’s actually the case. I now present you with a mere handful of the many experiences that confirms this:

We moved to St. Louis just before my sophomore year of high school, and though I spent three years in school there, there’s a whole group of my classmates who have no idea who I am. No, it isn’t because of how big my school was, because there were 80 people in my class. AND I was one of two new kids that year. Everyone should know who I am for that fact alone—you always know the new kids.

When I was in London, during my junior year of college, I was in some club and ran into Dan, who I’d never been close with but who I not only had classes with, but was on a committee with for two years in high school. I saw him in a stairwell, and was enthusiastically saying hi and asking how he was when he cut me off and said, “I’m sorry, but who are you again?” I reminded him and he seemed to feel bad, and when I told my friend we laughed for a good twenty minutes about it, but truth be told, it really bothered me.

Flash forward to my first year after college—I was at a bar in NYC with the same friend I’d been visiting in London, and another one of our friends, both from St. Louis—and we ran into Andrew, another classmate from the Lou. He said hi to my two friends but completely ignored me, and finally my friend said, “Andrew, you remember Miss Peach, don’t you?” AND SHE HAD TO INTRODUCE ME TO HIM.

I could really go on, but I think I’ll just cap this with today’s addition to the list:

We’ve had a temp in the offices for a while now, and he looks SO familiar to me. I immediately placed him as a guy who I went to college with. Then I thought maybe I was wrong, so I just let it slide. But today, he wore a shirt emblazoned with our alma mater’s name, and it all became clear. He had to be the guy I was thinking of. We had a bunch of mutual friends, my roommates and I would go see his band play periodically, we always went to the house parties he and his roommates threw… in other words, lots of overlaps and much time spent together in group settings.

So, finally, at the end of the day, I went up to him and asked if he went to our school, and he said he did, introduced himself, and asked my name. There was not so much as a glimmer of recognition. Not a hint that he remembered me. And the last time we hung out, I expressly remember being quite drunk and singing the high part of some song he was playing because I was the only one present who could come within any recognizable distance of that note.

I also remember him wincing when I tried to hit it.

And if that didn’t make any sort of lasting impression, I really don’t know what would.