Ramblings and Ruminations

Prompt: Remind

As most old-timers will tell you, it's not that we forget things; it's just that we have archived them in remote corners of our hippocampus. It just takes a little longer to retrieve them. Sometimes more than a little longer. Often my brain will wake me in the midst of slumber with a message: "Got that memory you requested."

"Thanks. What am I gonna do with it now? Go back to sleep, brain"

Of course, it doesn't. The hippocampus has passed it off to other parts of my temporal lobe. Even if I manage to go back to sleep, it is there, teasing my dreams, taking up brain cells that could be put to better use.

Picture your smart phone screen with all those icons on the front page. Now imagine the little number at the corner of the icon, telling you there is a message there to be retrieved. That's exactly what it is like. You can't ignore it. I have found the best way to handle it is to get up, retrieve the memory, and then call my buddy. "Hey Rick, remember what we were talking about earlier? Well, it was in 2008, just outside of Tempe. What? Well, ok. I just thought you would want to know."

I see it every day at my work. People struggling to share a memory with me. I know it is frustrating for them and I try to help.

"Yeah, we were coming up from Encinitas and the darndest thing happened. It was, uh..."

<pause>

Me: "On the 101?"

"What?

"Were you driving on the 101 highway?"

"Probably. Does it matter?"

"I don't know. It's your story. But it might have been the 5."

"That reminds me," he said. "Did you ever take the 5 through Camp Pendleton when the Marines were doing military exercises? The air is thick with choppers. Traffic is slowed to a crawl."

"So what about Encinitas?" I ask.

"Where?"

It may sound a little scary to you young whippersnappers but for us it is just a part of everyday life.

Here is a true story. As some of you know. I work part-time at the front desk of our community's recreation center. Yesterday, I was on duty when a neighbor came to my desk with a cell phone in his hand. "This was on the floor of the gym, next to the step machine."

I took the phone and looked at it. "It's not yours, is it, Bob?"

"No. I checked." Bob was not offended at the implication he might have forgotten what his phone looked like.

"OK, thanks." I logged it in. Since there was no name on it, there was not much else I could do until someone asked about it.

A little later, a resident came in and asked if a wallet was turned in. "I think I left it in the gym," he told me.

I confirmed no wallet had been found and he went into the gym to look for it. When he came out, I asked, on a hunch, "are you missing your phone, too?" I held up the found phone.

"I don't think so, but that looks like mine."

"See if you can unlock it." I handed it to him.

He punched in some numbers and the screen opened up. He called his wife.

Now this is the actual conversation: "Hi honey. No one has turned in my wallet. My phone? Yeah. They had it at the front desk." He listened a bit more than told her he would be home soon.

He looked at me. "My wallet is home on the table. It was my phone I was supposed to find. Thanks."

"No Problem," I told him. Just another day at work.