Patrons, Don't Take It Personally...

I'm just really bad with remembering names especially if I only see you every few weeks for a brief moment. A regular patron came up to me tonight during our closing procedure, which usually involves me staring down the last few patrons on public PC's who always wait til the last minute to send their print jobs to the print station and hold up all of the staff. He asked if i could help him jumpstart his car. Whenever he passes by the info desk to the quiet study room he always waves and says "hi" or "bye." I walked out a few minutes early to help him and he told me his name and we made small talk for a few minutes. The instant he told me his name its like my mind hit the Mute button. Now he'll probably greet me by name and I'll be left replying, "hey!..... You.." I should just be upfront and tell him I suck at names and ask for his, or I could just make patrons wear name tags. In other library related news, we had a local author do a booktalk and it had a pretty good turnout. One of the English teachers at a nearby high school had an assignment for students to attend a booktalk. A handful showed up and the author was really entertaining and interesting enough that they all enthusiastically bought a book for him to autograph. I know some branches that don't allow local authors to talk because they've not gone so well or the author's book was sketchy to say the least.