Name impaired

Brent always cracks me up. He is notorious for calling people by the wrong name. He'll come home from work and tell me about a new person he is working with, let's say for an example, Tom. Then he'll continue with the story about Tom, only he'll keep calling him Ted. I'll be a bit confused, and ask, "Do you mean Tom?" "Yeah, Tom," he'll reply with a hint of "aren't you listening" in his voice. So I say, "Well, because you keep calling him 'Ted.'" "Oh. No, it's Tom," he'll explain. Then again with the story, and within a few minutes "Ted" has once again entered the picture. It cracks me up so much because even as Brent gets to know Tom well he'll still often slip up and say "Ted."

The funny thing too is that it doesn't just happen at home. One story just makes me laugh every time I think of it. Brent was recently meeting with a man named Lane, who besides being one of his best friend's brothers, also runs 13 companies for a very wealthy man here in Utah. They were discussing business, having a very in depth discussion and yet Brent kept calling him "Blaine." Finally Lane said, "Brent, my name is Lane." "I know, I'm sorry," Brent replied apologetically.

It seems this trait has passed down to his son. Ty started his first year of preschool this fall. After school I would often ask him about his day and he'd give a quick reply about something they did, but he never talked about the other kids. I didn't think too much about it until a couple weeks had gone by and when some of the other moms would see me with Ty they'd say, "Are you Ty's mom?" I'd smile and say yes and they'd continue, "Oh, my little boy loves Ty. He talks about him all the time." I'd give a little laugh in response since Ty had never mentioned their sons, so I couldn't reply that Ty talks about them all the time as well. I started to wonder what was going on. Then one day, it became clear to me. We were walking out of the building after school one day, and Ty seemed to be particularly happy. He spotted one of his friends playing not far from us while his mom was talking to a friend. I happened to know the name of this friend, it being one of the boys whose mom had mentioned that he--Will--talked about Ty all the time. As we were walking past, Ty yelled out to Will very enthusiastically, "Bye, Johnny!" Nobody's head turned, so he again yelled even more fervently, "Bye, Johnny!" Now if you know Ty, he will not quit asking you or telling you something until he gets some sort of response or acknowledgement from you, even just "Ok, Ty." He will say it over and over and over until you say something back. So once again he yelled even louder, "Byyyye Johnny!"

Yep, he gets it from his dad. So if you are ever talking to Brent or Ty and they call you by the wrong name, don't be offended, they do know you and love you, they just happen to both be name impaired.