Mind Tricks

I bought Cuppa a carton of wine yesterday. Yes, a carton as opposed to a bottle. I'm cheap, so sue me. I was on my way to the kids house at the time, so I put it in their fridge. And left it there. Apparently.

The thing is that I have, or I should say had, a pretty doggone clear memory of taking it out of their fridge to bring home to my beloved. I even thought that I had put it in the car. But when we couldn't find it today, sure enough, we eventually tracked it down to where I had left it -- back in the fridge.

I have recently had other pretty vivid memories that have turned out to be bogus. Like the time just a few months past when I vowed not to get caught on bank charges one more time by forgetting to transfer money to my chequing account before writing cheques. I vowed so hard that I was absolutely sure that I had done just that ... until the day that the bank docked me another whopping amount for NSF

Last autumn I wrote an email to a friend. I have a pretty clear memory of doing so. Except he never got it. I couldn't find it on my computer either. At the time I blamed cyberspace for swallowing it up. Now that I have been given proof of my rather pathetic proclivity to remember things that have never occurred, I am pretty sure that I never did write that email. I likely thought about it, even to the point where I probably composed it in my head, but I now sincerely doubt that I every really sat down and typed it out,

In the past I have done the same with another friend -- twice -- and this led, at least in part, to a fractured relationship. Now I realize that I probably didn't write those either. I hang my head.

There must be a lesson about memory here, aside from my dunderheadedness that is. I wonder how often  people hold grudges based on a memory of an incident which didn't really happen in the way that their minds tell them. We little people tend to be pretty blinkin positive that somebody said or did something bad to us and therefore wronged us, but in point of fact it may be our memories that are just plain inaccurate.

I also wonder how many innocent people have been convicted to prison terms or even worse based on the memories of well-meaning witnesses that were false or at least inaccurate? Of course, no one knows the answer to that, but the notion does give one pause for thought.

Of course, maybe I am the only person to whom such a false memory has ever occurred. There is that possibility. But I really don't think I am that unusual and weird. My family might, but I don't.