Name Shame

I've been hosting the 8 o'clock show at iO every Sunday for the last five months or so. I enjoy it and I think I do it well. Tonight however I got rocked with a realization during my opening schpeel.

Me: ...but first some introductions- Dave Asher on keys! (applause) We're not only a theater we're also a bar! We have...(I shade my eyes to look behind the bar, I see a guy and realize I don't know his name. I realize that this has been the guy tending bar for the past month or so and I've been calling him the wrong name. I reach for his name and come up empty. I'm hit with a cold bucket of shame and embarrassment. A take a brief pause to let him say his name and he doesn't. I'm left with no other alternative than to say, again, the wrong name I've been saying for weeks now) Devilyn behind the bar and Molly serving you drinks...

The rest of the show I'm in my head and can't shake off the flush in my cheeks. I feel like the utmost asshole. After the show I'm out back with Molly having a cigarette.

Me: That's not Devilyn.
Molly: No silly that's Nate.
Me: Fuck me.
Molly: You've been doing it for weeks. He was going to tell you tonight. We thought it was really funny. People have been coming up to him asking if they've got his name wrong. But no it's been you!
Me: Such a fucking asshole, Jesus...
Molly: No! It's funny!

I tell myself I haven't ordered a drink at iO in two years so I've had no interaction with the bartenders. I tell myself the male bartenders there look similar- big, bearded. There's no excuse. I feel stupid and embarrassed and like a real uppity shithead who can't find out what the fucking bartenders name is. Devilyn worked the bar on Sundays for a while and I never bothered to check to see if the schedule changed. Never bothered to engage or make an effort. It would be one thing if this was the first night but I've been doing it for weeks. It's a mistake and it's mine and I have to own it. Yuck.

The upshot- I'll never get Nate's name wrong again.

The hard lessons are the ones that stick.