And You Must Be Whats-His-Face

At a conference last week, I bumped into this guy who looked vaguely familiar. Funnily enough, he didn't seem to have too much problem placing me. Funnier still, he seemed happy to see me.

"Dr. J" he beamed, "Remember me? We met at the software symposium in Virginia last December."

I looked at the man blankly. He beamed back eagerly. I repeated the blank look, and added a squint to effect. He continued the eager beam and refused to go away. Try as I did, I just couldn't place him. Finally, having decided that I needed to acknowledge his cheery greeting, I squared him up with my best deadpan face and responded "So?"

The glint disappeared from the man's eye. He reeled a bit, mumbled something incoherent and slithered off into the distance. For some reason I didn't see much of him during the rest of the conference.

The really funny thing however is that this has happened before.

********
postscript: Yes, yes. I know this is another conference related post. I have been attending a lot of them of late.