August 4, 2007
View Comments | Post CommentStupid Brain!
I lost a parking garage ticket tonight and had to pay the maximum rate for the garage. It would have been $2.75 with validation, but it was $15 without a ticket. It's not that surprising, really. On the contrary, it's exactly the sort of thing I would do. I'm pretty good at remembering information, trivia, legal rules, etc., but I'm horrible at remembering to do things.
Apparently, most people have some mechanism in their brains that kicks in and notifies them when they need to do something. It apparently goes something like this: "Pardon me, self, but I just wanted to remind you that you were supposed to turn in an essay tomorrow, so you should probably write it tonight;" or "Hey! Me again. Listen, earlier, you said I should tell you not to leave your jacket under the seat. Well, it's still there," or "Wait! I know that at the moment, it just seems like a random piece of jetsam from your pocket, but you're going to need that funny little salmon-colored piece of card stock to get your car out of the garage, so you probably shouldn't throw it in the bathroom trashcan."
I know that other people have that mechanism, because mine occasionally kicks in, albeit more quietly, and less lucidly: "Hey, um... there was something you were going to do... let me see... something... um... it had to do with paperwork, I think?" But even that is rare. Normally it's just "La la la" while I'm missing deadlines, losing things, forgetting to make plans, and paying five times too much for parking.
I am just very poor at that sort of self-reminding-memory. And I have no idea what to call it! There's a clear difference between our "What is the capital of Spain" memory, and our "Remember to put the rent check on the foyer table" memory, but I don't know what each of them are called. And the older I get, the more I realize that while I have great confidence in my "Who played 'Chunk' in The Goonies" memory, I have a pretty terrible "Remember to get gas before driving anywhere tomorrow" memory.
Posted at August 4, 2007 3:09 AM | Comments (5)
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David, what you call it is being a male.....your DNA is what predisposes you to this trait, although some men have been able to figure out how to outsmart it. Don't worry though, that's where the need for a good woman in your life comes in. We generally do not have this trait on our DNA and feel the need to keep on top of our men and nag them to death!! (j/k) Ask Mr. T. He will tell you how it's been for 32 years :-)
Posted by: Mrs. T. at August 4, 2007 9:57 AM
That reminds me of the time when I forgot to write my final exam essay for an English class until I ran into a classmate at Wendy's at 2 AM who reminded me it was due at 10.
I've had the lost parking ticket thing happen to me before too. It especially sucks when you're only there for a little over an hour. My sympathies. I guess all of our brains are kinda like that.
Posted by: Mike at August 4, 2007 12:06 PM
I've got the same problem. You've got to minimize the number of chances you give yourself to forget shit.
If I take a shirt or jacket off I try to tie it to something I can't forget, or set it somewhere that if I do forget, it will find it's way back to me. The parking garage ticket always goes directly into the visor. When it's time to leave- BAM! There it is in front of my face.
It's kinda like being the guy in Memento, but to a lesser extent.
Posted by: Ross at August 5, 2007 7:13 PM
Sure, leaving the parking ticket in the car would've been the logical thing to do, but then I couldn't have gotten it validated by the movie theater.
Posted by: Barzelay at August 5, 2007 7:28 PM
Hah. Yeah I do the same thing all the time, man. I'll have a whole series of things to do and then as soon as something that strikes me as remotely interesting comes up...BAM! I'm focused on that instead and I have no more attention left over for peripheral shit. Like, even really simple stuff...if I meet someone and the first thing we talk about is fascinating, I almost always forget to ask the person's name.
I do about what Ross does and just try to leave myself in a position where I'm more likely to remember. I guess it's about all you can do.
Posted by: Dan at August 6, 2007 1:59 AM
