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.
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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!
Social Insurance Number = SIN!
I had my library card memorized for the very reason you reference: browsers didn’t use to save everything.
I didn’t even think about Saskatchewan being difficult to pronounce, but now that you bring that point up it’s glaringly obvious. There are so many ways people could try to sound it out. Now you know. I’m always thrilled to offer vital information to blog readers 😉
I’ve never been to Saskatchewan, so am looking forward to hearing all about your travels there.
I used to have all my friends’ phone numbers memorized, back in the 80s and 90s and probably 2000s. Now I don’t even know my husband’s. Or my kids’! OR MY PARENTS I AM A MONSTER. I need to really exercise that part of my brain. You can spell Nieuwendyk, I can spell my besties’ last name from when I was in grade 5 – Niadzialek. It will never leave me! And yet I don’t know my husband’s phone number. I DO know my SIN and I used to know my credit card number – but then I changed credit cards, all is ashes.
That last name is quite a mouthful!
I want to know those numbers by heart, but then I have zero desire to actually commit them to memory.
All is ashes… HAHAHA!
I know my childhood phone number and family friend number- more years ago than I like to think. I used to have most of my kids SN memorized. Not anymore! And I can’t remember students from one semester to the next. Oh well, at least I know the entire musical Joseph and the technicolor dreamcoat by heart…
Lyrics to music didn’t even cross my mind! Or movie quotes. I’m fairly good with lyrics, but TERRIBLE at remembering lines from movies. My family (John and Belle more specifically), can practically have conversations just in movie quotes.
I don’t know anyone’s SIN but my own (and apparently don’t always know my own)!
I do know my UK equivalent of an SIN, a National Insurance number. Also my car licence plate as we usually have to input this in public car parks here so tickets can’t be passed on or where number plate recognition is used. I agree re the whole physics/chemistry/maths thing. I was a straight A student in all at age 16 and have forgotten almost all of it completely. My mother has fairly advanced dementia and the mysterious effect on her memory is weird indeed. I try to be interested and analytical about it so as not to weep and wail about how truly distressing it is to witness. Also find it fascinating how different people often have completely different memories of the same event, or indeed no memory at all of something I can recall very well, and vice versa.
So many interesting things, Katherine!
Yes, I bet if I had to fill out my license plate number regularly I would commit to memory!
It is so hard to watch people we love lose their memories. It’s such a key part of what unites us in relationships (those shared experiences). I think there are times to weep and wail (it’s hard and sad) and also times to be interested and analytical. It is fascinating and our brains are incredible machines of information and watching those change over time, in it’s own way, is informative.
YES! Having multiple people recall the same event can be truly fascinating. Or one memory being strong for one person (my brother remembers the time a bus drove by me and got me soaked on a bike when Belle was a toddler), can be barely there for someone else (I don’t remember getting splashed, I just remember taking a long hot shower later that afternoon).
Like Katherine, I know my British National Insurance number. I also know my Danish social security number and my British customer number for my bank.
As for phone numbers, I know my parents’ landline and various friends’ landlines from school (most of which probably no longer exist). I know my own phone number but no one else’s, which isn’t good!
I’m pretty good at spelling but those skills aren’t generally tested, and I’m fairly quick with mental arithmetic (I’m not good at long multiplication or long division though). I love reading about the sciences now, but I can remember little from classes in school (and didn’t pay a lot of attention at the time which didn’t help). I’ve always loved History but for some reason I can never remember the majority of important dates.
I have an excellent longterm memory for random stuff I don’t need to remember, which is kind of annoying. I always physically write down an important date or number I need to know – somehow using a pen helps it stick in my mind more!
I know some people that don’t know their own number which makes sense in a way (you rarely call it), but is vital information. That is the one number I have to give out the most in day-to-day life.
I am HORRIBLE at mental arithmetic. Truly horrible. My father has a near perfect recall of dates and details both in his own life, but also in the lives of others and within history. My other loves math (my dad is terrible at it), but would be hardpressed to tell you when the War of 1812 happened.
I have a cheat sheet with all sorts of codes and passwords and numbers. It saves a lot of time, especially for things I need quasi-regularly (like the kids medical card numbers).
My favorite law school professor told us that we would never know more law than we did on the first day of the two-day bar exam, and that that as we left the exam room at the end of the second day, it would slowly start leaking out — and he was right! I think it is true of all careers, that as one specializes, the general knowledge once held isn’t used every day, so it melts away.
I am a terrible speller. My kids have regular vocabulary and spelling tests in school, for which I am grateful! Hard disagree with those who say learning spelling fundamentals doesn’t matter because autocorrect is ubiquitous (as I misspell ubiquitous and rely on autocorrect! Ha!).
Yup. A professor I knew once said that you’d forget 95% of the material you learned in university and I think he might have said the 5% you remembered wouldn’t be useful. And that the experience was mostly about developing general skills. Which is both encouraging and depressing (when you think of the time and money that goes into a degree).
I remember taking Organic Chemistry in my undergrad and having to memorize dozens (and dozens) of chemical processes (like glycolosis). It was so much insane memorization. At one point I asked my prof how many she knew, and she said none of them because at this point in her career, she would just refer to the textbook. Needless to say, I don’t remember ANYTHING from that class, but it also makes me feel better about forgetting the information. That’s what textbooks are for, right?
Autocorrect has changed the landscape of spelling forever!
I love thinking mnemonic thoughts!
Phone numbers: I know my mother’s landline number but not her cell by heart. I can’t actually think of another currently useful number I know without looking. My childhood phone number is engraved in my brain, though it’s been 30 years since it was “ours.” My best friend’s childhood phone number belonged to her parents until last year when they sold their house, and it makes me sad to think it no longer reaches them. I memorized my grandparents’ phone number when I was a kid, along with my Dad’s work calling card number (so I could call Mom when she was staying with Grandma after surgery), and I still know the entire thing, even though that’s been useless for decades and I could use those brain cells.
Other numbers: I do have my SSN memorized, but when I’m asked for the last four digits to confirm I’m me, I often have to think through the whole number to get it. My license plate is KNITTER, but the random one I had before that I never did memorize. When I was in my 20s, I worked at a bookstore where we sold a ton of a local map book, and it didn’t have a scannable code, so I learned its ISBN by heart (though that is long forgotten).
Spelling: I guess if you didn’t grow up where I did, being able to spell Massachusetts might be more of a challenge. I remember learning how to spell a neighboring state by pronouncing it connect-I-cut (it’s actually pronounced conneticut).
Aww. That’s so sad about a phone number no longer reaching a beloved family.
“I could use those brain cells.” Haha. This really made me laugh 🙂
I think the take-home message from today is that I need to get a vanity plate. KNITTER is brilliant. No ambiguity about that.
I doubt I could spell Massachusetts without some help! Or Connecticut (I’d miss the second “c”.)
Reading the comments, I think we all remember things from childhood that we had to use repeatedly, plus completely random stuff that our brains apparently decided was worth keeping!
The other day, I read about a public-speaking course where the participants had to stand up in front of an audience and sing any refrain they could think of. Of course, when put on the spot, their minds went completely blank. I thought about what I would sing, and I’m pretty sure the only thing that would come to me would be some childhood song, probably “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” or something equally ridiculous. Crazy how the brain works!
Clearly things from childhood stick in our brains AND also, we grew up in much more analog childhoods! No smartphones with built-in contact lists.
I read your note about singing any refrain and, even though I sing out loud every single day, my brain did indeed go blank!
I also did not know your identification number is SIN – it’s SSN here. I know mine but I do not know my children’s. I do have my library card # memorized. It’s 14 digits long so not short! But I lost my library card several years ago but did not trust that my holds would be moved over if I got a new card so I memorized my card number. Then a year ago when I cleaned out our stroller, I found a key chain library card so now I can scan that to check out books. But it’s nice to know the number and enter it if I don’t have my keys handy!
I know very few phone numbers! I know Phil’s and my old coworker Paul’s and that’s it. I have to have a separate iPhone for work for SEC regulatory reasons but I don’t know the phone number for it. My office number rings on a zoom ap so I just give people that number! I HATE having 2 phones!
I’m very good at spelling! But it’s not the most useful skill thanks to spellcheck and such. And I have lost most of my math skills that I acquired when I got my degree in math. I was doing some impressive computations back in college, especially when I took linear algebra. But I’ve steadily gone downhill. I’ll get a refresher on calc when my kids take that in HS, though! And hopefully it’s like riding a bike.
Gah. Calculus. Now that is a subject I hated (but had to take as part of my degree). I remember nothing and don’t ever want to be reminded of it, haha.
Before browsers kept library numbers saved, I had it memorized it because I was entering it so often! I lost my card a while ago, so they bring up my account based on my name. If I wanted to get a new card, I’d have to get a brand new number which I do NOT want to do.
I can still remember my childhood phone number. And I know my husband’s cell number, but not either of my kids. I know my SSN and my license plate, but today when I dropped my car off to be serviced and they asked me what year it was, my mind was a blank.
I have to laugh at your friend and the trigonometry. Even when I was in school, I knew the math I was taking would be completely useless in everyday life. I loved the part in Peggy Sue Got Married where she stands up in the middle of her high school algebra class and says “I happen to know from experience that I’ll never need to know any of this.”
Reading Katherine’s comment above- it is really interesting how people have different memories of the same event. Sometimes I’ll mention something to my sister that happened in our childhood, and she’ll have a completely different version. And just last night my husband and I were talking about the day my daughter was born, and he insists I said something THAT I NEVER DID. I KNOW my version of this is correct!!! Grr. I need a rewind button so we can go back and settle this once and for all.
I’m siding with you on the delivery day, Jenny. Doesn’t your husband know the wife is always right, ESPECIALLY IF SHE’S PUSHING ANOTHER HUMAN OUT OF HER BODY?
So much of school is pretty useless in my opinion. But I think it has less to do with the knowledge and more with opening doors (people can learn what they’re naturally interested in by trying out lots of things), and teaching life skills like studying and time management. But I wish there was less time spent on some of the academic topics and more on general practical things like how to cook, make a budget, invest (!!), travel, clean a house, etc. That is broadly transferrable information that kids seem to be lacking, especially these days.
I can remember my childhood phone number, SIN, my old student/employee number, licence plate, parents’ phone number, my cell and husband’s cell numbers, bank card, and can write one of my sister’s and parents’ addresses on letters, including their postal codes without looking them up. This list makes me feel better about my aging memory LOL! I think the early ones are just burned into the early grey matter and the later ones I use often. I have a trick to remember my licence plate – the last 3 letters are JLL and my husband said “J loves L (my daughter)”. This has been very handy when I go to pay for a parking ticket and I need to punch in my licence plate number. Saves me a trip back to the car!
Employee numbers! That hadn’t crossed my mind, either. I know at one point in university I had my student number memorized because grades for lab exams would be listed publicly but by your number.
I know my parents and in-laws address in full, but… that’s about it!
Aww. What a sweet way to remember your license plate. I feel like I had a memory technique for mine, too, but clearly it wasn’t very good because I can remember neither the prompt NOR the license plate.
I hate going to the parking garages that you have to enter your licence plate. I often have to go back and remind myself which is pretty embarrassing.
I know my dad’s and G’s mobile number. I also remember my childhood home and holiday home plus the landline of the first home we lived in after we were married which is all completely useless now.
I don’t memorise any of my other numbers because generally if we need to give them we also need to show the actual card.
If only we could choose to let go of the numbers that are no longer useful (childhood homes; though there IS something sweet and nostalgic about knowing them), and effortlessly replace them with things like current phone numbers we actually wish to remember!
Not knowing phone numbers really can be a problem! We were at a cross country meet recently and one of the girls fell down. She was ok, but wanted her Mom/coach, but didn’t know their numbers. We (the spectators) honestly didn’t even know how to help her. We had to flag down a volunteer and then get them to walkie around until a coach could be found. It was a whole dilemma! I mean, I think my daughter has my number memorized but certainly not her coach, which raised a very interesting dilemma. I guess cross country is a unique sport in that you aren’t in view of coaches/parents at all times, whereas most other sports/activities provide at least one adult who is close by and knows the individual!
Eeks! This isn’t something I really thought about, but your example puts into fresh perspective how it can be a problem.
I remember reading about parents of young children writing their number on the kiddos arm in case they were separated in a crowd.
Our kids both know our phone numbers (John + my cell), but… that’s probably it!
After my ex-husband died recently, his partner called and asked me if I could locate his SSN. Turns out I still had it in my memory nearly 30 years after we had divorced! But my own bank account, driver license, car tag and friends’ phone numbers?? I have no clue.
Wow! That is a fantastic memory, and I’m sure their partner was very appreciative of your excellent recall.
I just have a picture of my license plates on my phone and use the search function for when I need to enter them for parking,forms,etc. It saves so much time. My sister created a sentence to remember hers, but I am far too lazy for that. SIN I know by heart (and two of my sisters since they are only a digit different, my parents must have requested them all together). I know so many numbers from childhood but not my own kids cell phone numbers.
What really gets me is that vast amount of song lyrics and movie/TV show quotes I seem to have stored in my brain. Honestly I think 80% of what is up there is one of those two things.
THIS IS SO SMART! I need to do this, Mary!
Haha. My husband is right there with you. She has an astonishing level of recall for song lyrics and I think he could talk for hours in nothing but movie quotes!
When I was in junior high Texas, there was a P E teacher who was from Mississippi. I actually was in the other teacher’s class but sometimes this gal would lead us when the two classes were combined.
(She may have been a practice teacher or substitute; perhaps she headed the other class and just co-taught us when her class was in the gym with ours. This was in the late 1960’s, so I’m not sure.)
She had a warm up exercise that taught us how to spell the name of her state.
Without going into the movements, I will tell you the chant we’d say with each step: M, eye, crooked letter, crooked letter, eye, crooked letter, crooked letter, eye, hunchback, hunch back, eye. The crooked letter was S and the hunchback was P. And of course, “eye” was the letter i.
I still say that rhyme to myself when writing out Mississippi.
But for the life of me, I cannot recall the teacher’s name!
Isn’t it wild what we never forget?
I remember the memory device for biological taxonomy (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Genus, Species) the following way:
Kindly
Professors
Can’t
Often
Fail
Good
Students
I learned that my very first day in university and can still recall the utter glee I felt when it was a multiple choice question (the ordering, not that pneumonic) in an upper-year class!
And every single time I need to know how a month ends (30 vs 31 days), I have to go through the whole song: Thirty days hath November, April, June, and November, all the rest have thirty-one, except for February alone. Which has twenty-eight days of time, expect in leap years twenty-nine!
This rhyme continues with “and except for January which has approximately 8679 days!”
I know my license plate and my husband’s phone number and my US SSN. I do NOT know my Canadian SIN. I know the first and last sets of numbers but not the middle set. Useless! I do know my Medicare number but I have to double check it to be sure because I’m not terribly confident in it. I know absolutely none of these numbers for my husband and kids. 😅But I know all their blood types and clothing sizes so surely that counts for something?!
I need to make sure the kids memorize our phone numbers. It’s really a good thing for a kid to know!
Ohhh. I don’t have any of our Medicare numbers memorized, but I DO now have them written down because I have to fill them out a lot for youth/sport events.
I don’t know ANYONE’s blood type, including my own.
My kids DO know our phone numbers, and I agree it’s a safety thing.
Also, hilarious you know your SSN, but not SIN! Makes sense, though, since I think you moved to Canada much later in life? Those early numbers are burned into our memory in unique ways.
I wrote my social security number wrong on my college application! Oops. It got straightened out eventually. My senior year the school switched to using student ID numbers instead of our SSNs and I do still know my id – useful when ordering a transcript.
As far as useful phone numbers I know my mom’s cell number and a few close friends. In the area of useless phone numbers, I still remember my Kindergarten best friend’s number.
I am sure you weren’t the first (or last) to put down the wrong SSN on an application form.
I do think it’s sweet how many people remember friend numbers from a young age! It’s heartwarming (if practically useless).
I still remember my childhood phone number, and I have my own cell, Ivan’s, and my parents’ memorized (from a long time ago, they haven’t changed). But ironically, I do NOT know my boys’ cell phone numbers! ha. I should probably memorize those, but… yeah. It’s in my phone….. I know my SSN also and that’s about it. I’m hopeless at remembering passwords to things and when my Face ID or saved log in fails, I’m always like… CRAP….. gonna need to reset my password… haha. (I do have a secret sheet 😉 but sometimes I do not carry that with me…).
Oops, that was not supposed to say “I SOMETIMES do not carry that with me”. I meant I NEVER carry my secret sheet of all my passwords with me!! LOL that would be… pretty dumb. 🤣
I think new numbers (kids’ cells) are SO new and we’re conditioned now to NOT memorize those things because we have them saved as a favourite by name, not by number. There was so much repetition with punching a physical number into a landline.
Resetting passwords is the bane of my existence but sometimes it cannot be helped. I also have a cheat sheet, but sometimes I’ve forgotten to write things down. SIGH.
I have no idea what the Australian equivalent of a sin number is. Our tax file number maybe? But I only have to write that once a year so it doesn’t quite feel the same.
I tend to remember mobile numbers decently especially my ones from my childhood. License plates I’m not too bad with. It’s pretty handy that I remember the password to log into my password manager, which is a complete jumble of letters in numbers.
This whole topic reminds me of a black mirror episode. They have a memory they can replay like a projector on the wall. The main character used it to work out that his partner is cheating on him, or something like that. But can you imagine if that was actually real?
Password managers for the win!
Like many, I know old phone numbers and addresses, plus my SSN. But, don’t know my own kids phone numbers.
My husband has a theory about memory, we call it the Penguin Theory. Imagine you are a penguin on an iceberg; the iceberg is your brain and the penguins are your memories. If you’ve ever seen a bunch of penguins on an iceberg in the very cold weather, some stay in the center getting/staying warm (those are your long-term memories). Many penguins jostle for room in the middle, so those are memories/information that comes and goes. Other penguins are on the perimeter/edge of the iceberg, those are short-term memories, because as the penguins shuffle to get warm, the ones on the outsides get bumped off of the iceberg and into the ocean. Perhaps they are eaten, but sometimes, they pop back onto the iceberg. And sometimes, the iceberg cleaves off chunks of ice (that’s your brain shrinking – dementia, TBI, etc), so you have less room for all of the penguins.
The Penguin Theory is utter brilliance! I have a feeling I’m going to remember this for life!
Oops, “Thirty days hath SEPTEMBER”. This is a new ending to the song, much less lumpy-sounding than the version I learned. But I learned it as a poem, not a song. (Is it “EXCEPT in leap year”?)
Sigh. Yes, as per usual, I’ve typed faster than my brain can work properly. There are NOT two versions of November, and it is indeed except.
I remember an astonishing amount of phone numbers, and there is no use for many of them. It is much more complicated now. There used to only be a few prefixes and everyone around had the same area code. Now we can take our numbers when we move, so there is a lot more to memorize.
I try to force myself to type in passwords and to dial phone numbers rather than just press the easy button. But it takes discipline, and often I don’t trust my memory.
We are sort of overloaded with those complicated phone numbers and passwords and user names for everything.
A very good point: we have so many more numbers to remember these days. Passwords, authentication, PIN numbers. Most of those things didn’t exist when I was a kid!
How funny to see MY name (Wendy) in the middle of the hockey players!?!
I’d never noticed that before, but so true! That would have been helpful when I was memorizing it!
Cognitive decline is so sad. I have been doing some carpet cleaning for my mom who is losing it a bit. She has lost her phone in the fridge about 3 times now, which is both hilarious and so sad.
Watching parents age is so difficult. I know what you mean about it sometimes being tangentially funny, though. No risk of her phone overheating!
I still remember the phone number from my childhood home! And the ones from my best friends back then. I also know the most important cell phones numbers by heart (Jon, my sister, my parents), my social, my bank account number, and my driver’s licence and license plate (not the VIN number though LOL). I think my best memory however is birthdays. I know a LOT. of birthdays by heart.
Do kids still memories poems and such in school? I feel like that is a lost art and terribly sad and detrimental!
I also agree with Katherine: it’s super fascinating how different people often have completely different memories of the same event. I have talked about this with my sister so many times… she’ll recall things that I don’t remember at all and vice versa. It’s the strangest thing!
Bank account number! That is such a good one to have memorized (I do not).
I feel like poetry memorization is completely gone from schools now. It was a big part of my Dad’s education growing up, though. And, of course, he still remembers them.
Things I remember:
My health insurance member number from 1987-1994 (which came in handy when we switched back to this insurance in 2024, and I have the SAME member number!)
My SSN
My husband’s SSN
My landline number
My landline number when I lived in San Francisco from ‘87-‘90, before Ted and I moved in together
My cell phone number
My husband’s cell phone number
My daughter’s cell phone number
My BFF’s landline number
My phone number from when I was a kid
My first car’s license plate (TLE 825)
My HS boyfriend’s license plate (ASN 974)
My old library card #, but I had to get a new one a few years ago and don’t put that one in a browser so I don’t know it.
My dad’s old landline number
My mom’s old landline number
My brother’s landline number
My checking account number
My in-laws’ old landline number
My grandma’s old landline number
Birthdays – I’m good with remembering those, always have had a knack. My brother still isn’t sure when my mom’s birthday is, other than ‘it’s near when I had my first date with my wife’.
Triple Crown winning horses from the 1970s (there were 3…then not any more until 2015 – and there have only been 13 total, it’s quite the athletic feat. Did you know a thoroughbred loses 25-50lbs running a race? That’s a lot of sweat in 2 minutes!)
Things I do NOT remember:
My daughter’s SSN (I’m close but not quite on that one)
My Brother’s, BFF’s, Dad’s, Step-mom’s, In Laws’, or sisters’ cell phone numbers. I’d be doomed if I had to get in touch with them without my cell phone or phone book (I do have them written down)
My BFF’s phone number when we were kids
Any of my friends’ phone numbers now
My current license plate numbers (I have photos of them on my phone though, under ‘favorites’, thought that might be handy)
Anniversaries – I know mine, but not anyone else’s by heart
How to spell Saskatchewan (I just tried…almost got it)
I love that you can spell that hockey player’s name, and I can’t even pronounce it!
My spelling memory is declining, and my math memory, which was always terrible, is even more terrible.
I can recall several important phone numbers by heart, and, of course, a few from my childhood. Back then we didn’t need the area code first, so it was only seven numbers.
I know my SS number, and also my husband’s. Crazy enough, I know my American Express CC number by heart. HA. What does that say?
New-in-dyke.
My math memory is atrocious… let’s just not even talk about it.