Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Total Recall

I am one swift blow to the head from being the guy in the movie Memento.

I have a terrible memory. Seriously, my capacity for details surprisingly shallow. Each day that I wake up and remember my name and where I live is a small victory. I’m good with faces, but not names, which means that I probably give people a lot of awkward blank stares during social events. I don’t know what my friends do for a living or how old my parents are. I’ve long since forgotten the stats of my kids when they were first born.

It could be argued that my diminished capacity for details stems from one too many abuses of my brain during extra-curricular activities in college. But I’m comforted by the fact that my memory was terrible long before those debaucherous days. Though I’m sure they didn’t help.

Don’t get me wrong, my brain works. I know this cause I can remember useless things like what theater, with whom and where I was sitting for just about every movie I’ve seen on the big screen. I can conjure up hundreds of Simpsons quotes and I can remember song lyrics from the 80s. But I will forget to run the dishwasher, even though I was asked to do it a mere hour earlier.

WonderWife™ is quickly losing patience with me. Not that I can blame her. Many of our conversations go like this:

DGB: So what are we doing this weekend?

WW™: You’re taking the Bean to a birthday party because I have an appointment with Sprout.

DGB: Really? Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?

WW™: I did. We had a whole conversation about it. Last week. Over breakfast. You were eating eggs. I had a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese. You were wearing your red striped shirt. It was overcast and 67 degrees.

DGB: Nope. No memory of that. Are you sure it happened?

It’s not that I don’t care about these things. It’s just that the more mundane details of life tend to run through my brain like water through a colander. As a parent, there is so much more that I need to remember. These two extra small people living with us come with and endless amount of facts, trivia, statistics and rules. Not to mention the host of new people in our lives as a result. WW™ has excelled at cultivating different mommy communities—both on line and in real life. So now when she tells me that she’s going out with Lisa, I need to remember she is, what kid she parents and her husband’s name and occupation. I'm useless at birthday parties where it's all blank stares and birthday cake.

I used to blissfully bounce through life, unaware of what I was forgetting. But now I'm reminded of what I don't know and can't remember on a daily basis. It's starting to be a drag on everyone, especially me. But what is there to do?

So I ask of you, Hot Dads readers… Um, what was I talking about?

12 comments:

~*Jobthingy*~ said...

i have the same problem. i call it mommy brain.. i also blame teenage drug use LOL

Cameron said...

I have news for all the men out there: women do this to us intentionally. There was no conversation a week ago, they lie about that part to make us believe we're going insane. ;)

Another Suburban Mom said...

When Hubman and I have schedule discussions, we email them to each other and then put them in our outlook calendar.

said...

Ha! That's so funny. And here I thought I was insane for thinking I said something and then being told I didn't.

What?

DGB said...

Cameron...I KNEW IT!!!

Derek Armstrong said...

You just described every guy/husband I know.

TentCamper said...

Oh ....hoe I feel your pain! Mariah can spout off the life history of, not only the people whom we interact with on a daily basis and her old friends...but with more than 2 dozen bloggers and Twitterers. I can mention something about some comment someone made on Twitter and she'll say, "oh, yeah...she has had a rough week, her kid X and Y have been sick and her mother's cousin is in the hospital, but because her husband is a doctor...."and on and on.

I don't get it. But then again I am happy to give the blank stares and just know that I know someone from somewhere. As long as I can keep shit straight around the house and with the family...I'mm ok.

Anonymous said...

Daaaaaaamn.
Cameron's on to us!
Who told?
I gotta find her and make it look like an accident.

Your escalator operator said...

I like Cameron's answer - I want to, have to believe that it's at least partially true.
I was just going to write a post about this, but I think you've covered it, so never mind. But I have the same problems with memory - especially remembering names of people I met 3 minutes earlier. All the more frustrating because I can remember the randomest details of songs, movies and conversations from 20 years ago with the greatest of ease!

Unknown said...

Sticky notes and charts, they can be your friend.
Without them I may not remember who my kids are.

Amber said...

Memento was an awesome movie.
Just don't go all freaky with the tattoos.
Oh, and answer your phone, random conversations with strangers can be very liberating...

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