Tuesday, November 18, 2008

how minds work... or don't

This semester Jon and I have established a routine of always sitting down to eat dinner together on Monday nights and then watch of movie. Last night we decided to watch Superbad, because Jon had been quoting it for several months now and I said I hadn't seen it.

So we sit down on the couch, start the movie, and I recognize the credits. I remember watching the opening credits with Jon and talking about their bad ipod-esque dancing. We pondered why I had only watched the opening credits and not the rest of the movie. Weird. I insist I remembered nothing about the plotline. I must have gone off to work or read blogs while Jon watched the rest of the movie.

Then the opening scene. Oh my gosh, I recognized the opening scence. Did I see this movie? Surely I only saw the opening scene because having seen the main characters now I still can't remember anything else about the rest of the movie. Nothing. A blank. Then Jon says, "Do you remember McLovin?" Vague images of McLovin in a liquor store slowly started to come back to me, but I still couldn't really remember what happened in the movie, or how it ended. At all. But I had definitely seen the movie before.

I watched this movie less than six months ago and remembered NOTHING about it, and even FORGOT THAT I SAW IT.

Jon has teased me about this before ("you could hide your own Easter eggs!" or "it must be fun to watch Star Wars again and again and still be surprised that Darth Vader is Luke's father!"), but this Superbad experience takes the cake. (For the record, I could remember where Easter eggs were if I hid them.)

So, that is the long way of telling you that I have a terrible memory for plot lines. But I do remember numbers. Oh my gosh, I remember numbers. Especially when it comes to food prices. I still remember the unit price we paid for tortilla chips when I worked at Mid-Atlantic Field Station. I remeber what a good deal on cheese was in Remote Foreign Country. I know when we should buy extra olives or refried beans because they're cheaper than usual. I also remember my mailbox combination for Small Friendly College (I confirmed this last month), but that's probably more muscle memory in my hand than anything.

Does anyone else have this plotline retention deficiency or a knack for numbers? I think my mom is the exact same way. I also count things differently than most people I've explained my counting to, but I'll save that for another post.

4 comments:

Liberal Arts Lady said...

I was able to open my undergrad mailbox when I attended my reunion earlier this year. I don't know why but that made me happy. However, I don't have quite that lack of plot-line recall. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise - you can enjoy the movie like new every time!

Albatross said...

Oh we were just talking about this! We saw an art film, maybe 4 months ago. I remember details about the drive, and can tell you what we ate, even what booth we sat in for dinner (even though it is the only time I have been to the restaurant). The movie itself? I can't remember the ending for the life of me...

Karina said...

It's weird. Obviously I can remember a lot of things or I would not have done well in school. But movies, I'm hopeless. I forget major plot twists!

Paulina said...

weird your thing about numbers. I can't remember numbers at all. I have no idea what anything costs, don't remember the time right after I look at the watch, don't know any of my parents and most friend's phone numbers, nor the combination to the lock on our shed. The thing with the movies happens to me sometimes too though.