not-Orange

The oranges I am eating are making a mess of the table and keyboard keys. It is spitting juice everywhere.

Very messy. Very messy indeed.

School started for me and 749 of my friends just over three weeks ago. We've been in class learning a ton of stuff, and we've been spending the time between the classes learning the names of the other 749 people in the program.

On the first week I went out to Baxter's Place and learned the names of a whole bunch of people, one among them was Ross. Red hair, glasses, early twenty-something. I quickly made a crack about Rachel that, luckily, no one heard. At least no one told me right away that they had heard. A girl sitting next to me told me a few hours later that she had heard me say it.

Though that's important. Ross didn't react to the joke I shouldn't have made about a television that isn't topical humor anymore.

Two days later I spotted Ross sitting in the lunch room and I went over to say hi and perhaps try my Rachel joke again.

Turns out I had sat down across from not-Ross. Red hair, glasses, early twenty-something - and not-Ross.

Not-Ross just smirked, awkwardly and shook his head no. Eventually he told me his name, to which I replied with mine and in the process of doing so promptly forgot his.

Luckily another girl I had spoke with at Baxter's came up and recognized him from a class of hers. While they talked I sat messily eating my orange.

Red hair, glasses, twenty-something, goes by the name of Dan.

I can never call them by name though. I see each of them in the halls still but there isn't a chance I'll be caught dead calling not-Ross by the wrong name again. I can't take the chance of messing up not-Dan either.

Remembering names isn't so hard, it's remembering who to call what name that is much, much harder.