Warning: Mnemonics Can Cause Histrionics

A loving text from my husband to me yesterday morning.

“O.K.  not your boyfriend’s nickname?” was his joking response.

“Ha.”  As if.  With a husband named Cap’n Firepants, who needs an Idiot for a boyfriend?

Despite my husband’s seeming alarm, he is quite used to my unconventional methods of reminding myself of things.  It really didn’t surprise him at all that I would add a memo to our electronic family calendar so I could remind myself that one of my favorite bloggers was having surgery and I was supposed to send the patient some good thoughts that A.M.

Just that morning, as a matter of fact, I had employed two other memory techniques that just made Cap’n Firepants shake his head.

When he was about to get in the shower, I said, “By the way, your razor is in my makeup organizer in my medicine cabinet.”

He paused.  “Uh, why?”

“Well, I remembered late last night that I needed to ask you about those gift cards before you left for work.  You were already asleep, so I figured if I stuck your razor in my medicine cabinet, you would ask me if I knew where it was after frantically searching for ten minutes, and I would remember that I needed to ask you.”

He shook his head, told me where the gift cards were hidden, and headed in for his shower.

I continued to get ready for work.  Thirty minutes later, I grabbed the presents I was bringing to work with me and headed out the door.  Except my keys weren’t in the key bowl.

“Gosh darn it.  Where are my keys?” I was already running late.  Geez! Oh yeah. In the refrigerator.  That’s where I put them when I need to remember to bring something to work.  What was I supposed to remember?  The presents.  That were already in my hands.  So, basically, I remembered the items I was afraid I would forget, but not the device I was using to help me remember them.  Typical.

Once, I went on a trip to an education conference when our daughter was really little.  So, my husband’s parents came to stay with him to help out while I was gone.  I called the first evening to see how things were going.

“Guess what my parents found in the freezer?”  Cap’n Firepants asked me.

“Uh, chicken?”

“No.”

“Meatballs?”

“No.”

“Oh!!!!!  My keys?”

“No.”

Now I was really perplexed.  “Just tell me.  What?”

“Your curling iron.”

Oh yeah.  I had put it there to cool it off really quick before I stuck it in my suitcase.  So, now his parents not only thought I was a bad cook, but that I somehow figured cylindrical hair appliances belonged in one of the food groups.

If I had programmed a calendar reminder to look for my keys in the fridge to remind me to pull my curling iron out of the freezer, my in-laws would never have discovered what a whacko their son had married.  At least for another month or so.

I should be thankful, I suppose, that when the “Idiot’s Surgery” reminder popped up on my husband’s phone he did not promptly text me to ask what time my surgery was scheduled for that day.  Married to me for eleven years, and he still does not immediately jump to the conclusion that I’m an idiot.  There’s that.

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