Anyone use them? I’ve memorized the basics: King Philip Came Over For Good Soup; Roy G. Biv; HOMES…stuff like that. But I know there are people out there who live their lives by these things. I don’t know that I have the mind for it. I seem to have a knack for repeating the exact wrong option when presented with two possible options that I’ve seen numerous times before.
Por ejemplo: I have a little remote control that I use to turn on and off the Christmas lights hanging on the bird feeder in my back yard (nerdy, I know). The remote is small and black, with two buttons on its face. The labels on the buttons are illegible in the dark, which it usually is when I’m using the remote. I always hold the remote the same way, and the functions of the buttons don’t change; one turns the lights on, the other turns them off. But I’ll be damned if I have bothered to remember which button does what. And when I choose blindly, I almost invariably choose the incorrect button. How can that be? It seems to defy the odds.
Mnemonics, I’ve read, are supposed to be good for your brain. Anything that builds memory is supposed to be good for your brain. But I’ve succumb to the siren songs of meta data and search. If I need to “remember” something, I put it in an e-mail and send it to my Gmail account. Then I can search for it when I need it. This is a great system for me, but it has its drawbacks. I was on the phone with our university’s parking office yesterday, trying to get a parking ticket resolved. Our parking hanger is registered under Leah’s name, so they asked me for her social security number in order to process my request. Uh…. I scrambled for a bit, in vain, until the nice woman on the other end of the phone got fed up with my incompetence and asked for Leah’s last name instead.
Must remember to e-mail Leah’s SS# to my Gmail account….