While grocery shopping today a man in his late 40's comes up to me and I think, he looks familiar, but can't place him. The man says, "How old is your little boy?" Since people are generally friendly and want to share their own experience with a child or grandchild that age, I said "almost 2 1/2." He said how cute he was and then he goes on to tell me that has a 16-year old daughter. Failing to see the connection to me 2 year-old- I said oh that must be fun and went back to pursuing the baking supplies.
Well, he then starts into his story about when his wife was 2 months pregnant he had a brain aneurysm and has no memory of the next year or so. As soon as he says this, it clicks as to where I have seen him before. In the Library about 6 months earlier, I had this exact conversation with this man...twice! As his story goes on, he told me in almost the same words how his wife wanted him to take Lamaze classes with him when she was only 1 month pregnant and thankfully he did and was a part of that before his aneurysm.
Then, he goes on to tell me how every day is a blessing and that I should treasure my son. The reason I remember it so clearly was because back 6 months ago, in the library, after he went through his long story, he finally leaves and I go back to looking at books. Not even 10 minutes later the same day, he comes back and starts the same conversation all over again, with "How old is your son?" and then I said something like oh he's 2 years-old, remember? and it clued him in and he said oh, have I already talked to you? I said yes he had, then he said "Oh I'm sorry I have no short term memory." Weird.
So when this guy in the store this morning did it all over again, I thought to myself, what do I do? Apparently I could be running into this guy at various places around town and he'll want to tell me his life story again and again and again. What is the polite thing to do? Just let him tell me like I've never heard it or kindly remind him we've already spoken? Quite the dilemma. What would you do?
