Too Broke to Pay Attention

I mean no offense to my lovely wife in writing this. I tread lightly on this for I make no attempt at making her feel badly. But, I have an observation. My wife doesn't pay too much attention to what she watches on T.V.

Yesterday, there was a marathon on BBC America of a show we watch called Top Gear. They are all reruns, heck, they are reruns the first time they come here being they are broadcast for the first time in England. Some we hadn't seen. They were from 2006 when we were moving and had a lot going on. Not much T.V. watching happened in those days. But some we had watched. Together. And she simply doesn't remember them.

"Are you sure I watched them with you?" she asked.

"No, I guess not. I don't remember." conceding it is perhaps it is possible I had just inserted her into the memory of watching the episodes the first time. But I don't think so.

I asked her about another show she watches. I don't even really know why it came up, just dinner conversation. It was a question about back story. She could not really answer me.

"I don't pay attention to that part because it's politics," she said, "I just like the show."

Fair enough.

We had an argument once over an episode of House Hunters that I know we watched together. Leaving aside for a moment the abject inanity of having an argument about House Hunters (or any TV show for that matter) she was steadfast in her position she had not seen the episode. Until two minutes from the end when she saw something that triggered the far suppressed memory and conceded she had seen it.

Once she asked me what the song was that went "da dada da dada da togther" and was flummoxed when I had not the least bit of a clue of which she was speaking. It turns out after hearing the song on the radio some time later is was Island in the Sun by Weezer, a song with a repetitive line in the background of the song throughout the whole thing that goes "doot doot". Why she focused on the bridge of the song and not simply the "doot doot" I could never tell you. It is just the way she thinks.

So while my wife finds forgettable much of the minutiae that comes to her by way of media and crosses (barely?) into her consciousness, I am beset with the opposite problem. I remember everything! I remember jingles of long ago commercials that played for only a short time, I remember words to obscure television show themes (even second or 'lost' verses), names of producers and years shows were on or went off the air, actors, changes in actors, multi-season plot points, etc. Nearly 20 years on, I know that I should dial 772-9435 for the best pizza from Pizza King if I find myself in Mt. Pleasant, MI.

This is really a problem, because while neurologists and biological psychologists tell us the brain has an infinite storage capacity, I believe they just say that because they don't know what the capacity of our brains are. Maybe very important biblical or moral information I need to be a decent human being was overwritten by last night's episode of Red Green! Oh, God. What have I done?

I used to be able to recall with dead-on accuracy the lyrics of literally thousands of popular songs by all artists from all eras. I could do the same from music learned from my more formal musical training, (much of which was in foreign languages). I can remember much of Orff's Carmina Burana. It has been almost 20 years since I performed it and it is written in a hybrid language that is as dead as supermarket etiquette. Beethoven's 9th symphony, third movement? Carved into my memory like a Cuneiform tablet, never to be erased. Or will it? And I was mostly not sober during the period of time when I learned these the first time!

It is with not a small amount of horror that over the last several years I have come to realize that this very finely honed skill, once so natural to me, is all but gone. I find myself singing wrong words to songs I used to know in my sleep. I will place whole lines in the wrong order and, upon realizing I have done this will stare blankly at the radio wonder when they changed it and why?

If this skill is no longer one of the 'arrows in my quiver', what has replaced it? What am I now good at? What is my purpose in life if I can't be that guy?

I think we should have to authorize any information overwrite that may occur in our brain, like as with a PC. On second thought, I would prefer to only be asked once, instead of the dozen or so times Windows asks (Are you certain? Excellent... um are you sure you are certain? Splendid! Just click here to certify we asked you and you are certainly sure. We are sending some papers over and will complete your request upon receiving notarized copies - usually 4 - 6 weeks).

At least there should be a short mental conversation. "Dude, remember that memory of that night when (omitted) and then (omitted) and (omitted) with the whipped cream and the (omitted) and just when you thought it was over and you were congratulating yourself for a job well done, that's when the trapeze came into play? Do you really want to replace that memory with this episode of Full House?

Sorry, Uncle Jessie, you lose.