A quick note: You can also find me over at The Frugal Girl today, where I’m talking about how intentional spending habits allowed our family to spend extended time (110 days, to be exact) in Europe without sacrificing our underlying financial values.
If you’re visiting from Kristen’s site, welcome! I’m so glad you’re here. I write about everything from frugal living and family travel to books, parenting, and the ordinary joys of daily life. Today it’s a somewhat random discussion about the things our brains choose to remember.
I’ve been thinking a lot about memory lately. Some people close to me have recently struggled with noticeable cognitive decline, and it’s in those moments I really start to appreciate the wonder of how our brains work. They contain such a treasure trove of memories, experiences, and information. Closer to home, I find it fascinating to think about things I used to know but have completely forgotten.
Yesterday I was catching up with an old friend. At one point in the conversation, she told me she used to be very gifted at math and received an extremely high grade in trigonometry. Then she looked at me and said: I couldn’t even tell you what trigonometry is about anymore.
I often feel the same way about just about every subject I took in university. I excelled at physics and chemistry and all my biology classes. But as soon as I left the exam room, the majority of that information left the proverbial building.
A few weeks ago, over dinner, our 11-year-old asked if anyone around the table knew how to spell Saskatchewan. John and I both did (though I can’t air spell it; I have to have pen and paper); we also ran through the spelling of Mississippi (do people still learn how to spell this in school?).
I tried to dazzle Indy with the fact that during my tween obsession with the National Hockey League, for reasons that escape me now, I was determined to memorize how to spell Joe Nieuwendyk’s name.
That is a random fact I have never forgotten, unlike my library card number (see below). I can even “air spell” it in a sing-songy voice: N-I-E-U-W-E-N-D-Y-K.*
*Just once in my life I would love this to be a trivia question WHERE SPELLING MATTERS. I can almost guarantee I would be the only person in the room to get it right.
I know I’ve blogged about memorizing phone numbers before, and the fact that, aside from a handful of well-established numbers (specifically: John’s cell phone, my parents’ home phone, our long-ago cancelled landline, and my doctor’s office), I don’t have ANY memorized. Which is positively horrifying and shameful. And, I suspect, pretty normal in modern society with our smartphones overflowing with contacts?!
I used to have my library card number memorized! What’s especially interesting is that I knew it for literal years, but now couldn’t even tell you the first four digits. (Wait, I think it might be 2111; hold on…*goes to check*… I WAS RIGHT. But beyond that I was clueless.)
I know my SIN, but I have to stop and think carefully each and every time. It doesn’t roll off my tongue, and I always worry I’ve gotten it wrong (and I never do**).
**Update: I had to fill out my SIN last week, and then double-checked to make sure and I HAD GOTTEN IT WRONG!!!
John has his passport number memorized; I do not. But this makes sense, as he enters it for online forms frequently for work travel.
I haven’t the foggiest what either of our license plates says. I couldn’t tell you a single letter or digit from either. But when we were driving home from the lake this summer we passed a vehicle with a plate that was HEY 122 and I thought: wow, now that’s an easy license plate to remember. Case in point: I still remember it over a month later and it’s NOT EVEN MY CAR.
Having perfect recall of how to spell a long-retired hockey player’s last name is a colossal waste of brain cells. I’d argue it’s not really a big deal that I can’t remember my library card number.
But it would behoove me to memorize my best friend’s cell phone number, my daughter’s cell phone number, and my parents’ cell phone number.
And, for a variety of reasons, I should have some idea of my license plate.
Right??
Your turn:
- Do you know many (currently useful) phone numbers by heart? I know lots of people who still remember the phone number from their childhood home!
- Have you memorized your Social Insurance Number? Library card? License plate?
- Tell me the most bizarre thing you know how to spell.
A quick reminder that our October Walking Challenge starts next Thursday. It’s been delightful to hear from people in various parts of the world who are committed to moving their bodies 10 minutes each day in October. Lots more details here. The more, the merrier. Join in + tell a friend <3
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TIL! I did not know that the “number” in Canada was called a SIN. That must make for some good puns. Back when I was in college, our SSNs were our student numbers, so for that reason alone I have it memorized, but sometimes I have to slow down and really think when I have to recall it. I’ve got my license plate down cold. I’ve never actually memorized my library card #, but back in the pre “browser saves everything” days, I know that I had to type it in a lot, so I at least had more familiarity with the numbers.
Saskatchewan!!!! Saskatchewan!!! I just now learned it by chunking sas-kat-che-wan and then making it into a phrase: “sassy cat ye won”. And then I found a 45 second Youtube video to help with the pronunciation “sus-catch-uh-wan”This is only important because I’m going to go there…well probably not this year but certainly in the next 12 months. I’ve gotten smarter in the last five minutes thanks to this post.
See you over at Kristen’s house!