Reality Check-Yipee, I Finally Know My Neighbor's Name!

Why does that make me happy? Well, I've had this habit over the years and you'd think by now I would know how to rectify it quickly. As a cafe owner in San Francisco, La Dolce Vita, back in the 80's and 90's we had our group of regulars that would come in to eat every weekend. As owners we would come to know our groupies on a first name basis. I remember one couple in particular, they were your typical Haight Ashbury gamer geeks. He had longish brown hair and horn rimmed glasses, his wife, a rather stout woman of ample proportions would come in almost every weekend to have breakfast. They would always order the same thing, french toast with the fresh fruit and whipped creme and read the Sunday newspaper or books. I remember I would wait on them, "hi Susan and so and so" (funny, I don't remember his name). I would see Susan on the street and say, "Hi Susan", or at the neighborhood Korean produce market, "Hi Susan", or at the local video store, "Hi Susan". One weekend they came in and ate and then left. She left her books on the seat. When her husband came back to retrieve them, I said, tell Susan Hi for me. He then said, "Her name is Cheryl, not Susan!" Now why would someone who came in every weekend keep letting me call her Susan? And so it began, a succession of wrong name calling. Like my neighbor in Denver, a nice man named Peter, or so I thought. It turned out it was the name of his German Shepard dog. This I found out one day when I was backing my car out of the garage. I could hear this muffled choking sound, but I couldn't determine where it was coming from. I turned my car stereo down to listen. When I looked to right where the sound was coming from I saw the German Shepard hanging by his collar over the wooden fence strangling himself. Peter had jumped the fence but his leash had hold of him over the gate. As I ran to the front of the house, I knocked desperately on the front door. The neighbor next door said they weren't home. I told them that Peter was hanging from the back fence strangling himself. I screamed he's almost dead but I was afraid to get him off the gate. Alarmed the neighbor ran with me to the back alley. When we got there, the neighbor paused but for a split second then jumped into action pulling the strangling dog off the fence. Of course he saved the dog, but in between gasping for breath and laughing, he told me that the dog's name was Jack, not Peter, Peter was the dog's owner. Ok, slight mistake! And so the tradition continues here in Las Vegas. Our neighbor, a lovely Italian lady with a penchant for yorkies whose name I always thought was Melana, until one day my daughter corrected me and said, Mom that's the dog's name. I was like what? I then told her to ask the neighbor what her name was, since she being a kid and all can get away with stuff like that. The next day she excitedly told me she asked the lady next door what her name was. She said she couldn't remember what it was, but that it started with an M. I'm like great! So the other day, when we were getting into our car and she was outside with her two yorkies, Melena and Mia, I said to her that maybe we should exchange numbers just in case of an emergency (what a light bulb idea!). Ah ha, she'd have to give me her name when she wrote her number down, ya think! No, it was just her number, home phone and cell! I was exasperated! Finally, my husband pipes up and says, how exactly do you spell your name and gives her back pen and paper to which she writes Marilia! Gee why can't owners call their dogs something like Fluffy or Fido? Single D