Pete is a moron, Example #318

Today, while walking through a building on campus and then later while I was eating in the Student Union (known to students as the “Ferg”) I saw a girl whose name I know, with a fair amount of certainty, to be Andrea. When I met her freshman year, however, I didn’t have quite as firm of a grasp on her name. I’d like to present to you yet another instance in which I behaved like a complete and total moron.

Let me take you back to the fall of 1999, my freshman year of college, a few days before classes started. Every year they have this “Bama Blast” session the day or two before classes start to get all the little freshies ready for the year. There’s food, pep rallies, lots of opportunities to meet people just as college-stupid as yourself, and a host of other things to do. During the pep rally in the stadium, I was sitting behind a girl named Megan who I had met earlier in line for some type of food. The whole little group of people sitting around us started talking about stuff, and some of us ended up hanging out for the rest of the Bama Blast session. After Bama Blast a smaller group of us kept hanging out. I didn’t get any sort of contact information from Megan, but I knew that she lived a few dorms down, so I knew I’d be running into her on occasion through out the year.

A week or so went by and hadn’t seen her around, but that’s not too weird. People are still settling into rhythms and I was trying to adjust to waking up in the morning to go to class. Then, just as I suspected, I started seeing her pretty frequently. We’d exchange smiles, hellos, and the occasional small-talk pleasantry. I usually saw her at the dining hall, but after a while I’d run into her all over the place. A whole semester passed like that, and most of the next.

So, one day toward the middle of Spring Semester I was feeling particularly smooth, and I decided that if I saw her in the dining hall I’d be sure to use her name… that’d be a good thing, I figured, considering we really hadn’t said anything substantial to each other so it’d be impressive to remember her name. After eating I was going to check my mail and saw her walking toward me in the hallway.

Me: Hey Megan! How are you?
Her: I’m Andrea, but I’m doing fine. How are you?

I was absolutely and completely shocked. For MONTHS I had been under the impression that this was the girl that I met at bama blast and that her name was Megan. This, as you’ve just noticed, was absolutely not the case. For months I had been waving, smiling, and exchanging pleasantries with someone I had never ever met. I tried to explain, but I just don’t think there was any saving my sorry ass at that point.

I see her all the time now, and I’m quite convinced that she laughs at me every single time she sees me. That’s ok, it was good for a story, right?