Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Memory Lapse

I wrote a story many years ago called MemoryMax (well I started it anyway, never actually finished it). Anyhow, the premise (not based on anything remotely scientific) was that if you could clear your brain of some unneeded stuff like old song lyrics, last week's grocery list, that kind of thing, you'd be a faster learner and sharper thinking. Of course, in the story, something gets downloaded from a soldier that shouldn't which leads to many chases and lots of violence but I digress. Today, that story popped into my mind when my daughter walked into the kitchen and said, "Mom, why is the car running in the garage?"

Excellent question that my girl had. It seems in my rush to load my arms with backpacks, my purse, papers, carryout containers, and making sure the children got into the house to start their homework, I forgot to turn off my car. It hadn't been running that long but even so, I felt more than a little ditzy at that moment. I have an enormous calender on my wall, all my appointments and my family's are programmed into my phone, and I have a written list of to-dos. It seems I forgot to add, Turn OFF  the car to the list. But I didn't feel quite so bad when I shared this with a friend of mine who said she came out of the bank on one occasion, searching frantically for her keys in her purse, only to discover she'd left the car running the whole time she'd been inside. So I'm revisiting my memory max idea, at least let me get rid of those Wham lyrics.

10 comments:

  1. I can't laugh at you as I have done similar things in my time. The best one comes from my Mum though. The first time she went out, after having me, she did some shopping and went home on the bus. It wasn't until she was asked 'where is the baby?' that she realised she'd left me outside the shop in my pram. Of course, this was 1970 when it was okay to leave babies outside shops!

    By the way, that story sounds interesting, you should definitely finish it.

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    1. Yikes, that is every new mother's nightmare.

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  2. Nancy, Sarah, your stories are funny. This hits close to home for me too. I think I'm too embarrassed to share what I forgot once (it has something to do with not putting a top on after coming out of a fitting room in a boutique), and that was 17 years ago:)
    Memory is a funny thing: we don't appreciate it when we have it and when it's gone we don't remember we should have appreciated it.

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    1. Ha!! that is great Marta. I still remember embarrasing stuff from 30 years ago.

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  3. haha it's always the little things we forget. Never left the car running, but like an idiot I've locked the keys in there a few times.

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    1. My husband locked the keys in his running car one time. The kids were inside but too little to unlock the doors.

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  4. Ha! We've all had these kind of moments. They're fun to write about and read about because every (honest) person can admit they've a "duh" moment.

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    1. I can always laugh later or sometimes during.

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  5. I have forgotten to turn off the car too. :)

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  6. I have to reserve at least a days worth of vacation time every year for emergency departures to go find my mother, who locks herself out of her car/home about once every 3 or 4 weeks.

    I don't like to make fun though, I can't help but notice a few signs of me having similar issues in the future.

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