I need a delete button for my brain.

So I was talking to my sister earlier and said something really funny. Something we agreed must be posted here. Of course now..several hours later, 7th grade science & a social studies lesson (with a little art history thrown in...no way public school is including that, but that’s another story.), dinner, cleaning the house, all that rot...I can’t remember what it was. It was good. Funny. Would have cause a lot of laughs. But where is it now? Either on the top shelf of my brain that I can’t reach, or worse, it’s fallen off the top, behind the book case itself, lost amongst the cobwebs and lyrics to Lionel Richie songs from the 80's that I somehow seem to remember all of the words to while walking though Ikea the other day. Now that’s a funny story.

I had the day off a couple of weeks ago (first day of 7th grade for Lovey to be exact). My neighbor Irish has been having a hard time lately so I called to her & invited her on a pointless excursion to Ikea...the great Swedish furniture store that can cause hours of decorating drifting. I live smack in between two different stores. Being that I live in Southern California, while they may be the same mile-wise in distance, they are vastly different time wise. That’s something only those of in the in the LA/Orange county area can really appreciate...the fact that it can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours to travel 11 miles. Just depends on the time of day and what direction your going.

So...we choose to go the one that would be closer time wise. Less traffic. Okay. I asked Irish to drive knowing that if we started talking I would inevitability miss the off ramp and end up hopelessly lost or long past where we were supposed to be. Wouldn’t you know it, we started talking away and completely missed the off ramp. Drove 3 cities away from where we were supposed to be. Took an hour & a half to get to a store 11 miles from my house. (It only took us 20 minutes to get home by the way). Good thing we didn’t have anything or anyone waiting for us. We laughed, made the best of it and finally made it there. We strolled around, picked up a few things. Gained a million ideas and had a lot of fun. As we wandered the marketplace...the dangerous downstairs cavern with all of the good stuff. Just as dangerous as Target I tell ya’. She went to the left, I went to right, individually dreaming of what we could do with our humble abodes (mine being WAY more humble than hers). A Lionel Richie, 1980's really cheesy song comes on over their PA system. Can’t remember the name something about dancing "Ay Carumba" being one of the lines. NOT a good song. But there I am, singing along, even putting a little dance in my step. Not realizing what I’m doing of course. Then it hits me. WHAT AM I DOING? WHY DO I KNOW THE WORDS TO THIS SONG? WHY CAN I PICTURE THE MUSIC VIDEO? Surely there are more important things for me to remember! Why this song? I turn to Irish, laughing at myself and confessed.

"I’m singing the song." I said shamefully.

"Me too." Irish laughs. "I just wasn’t going to tell you." At least I wasn’t alone.

Here’s my point. We should have some sort of delete button for our brains. Not to be used to remove the painful or traumatic memories or anything like that. I think we need those, they make us who we are and remind us of where we’ve been and what we’ve overcome. No, I think we need it for the useless STUFF. The miscellaneous useless knowledge that takes up too much room so you can’t remember the important things, like you sisters anniversary (sorry Sissy), or how many cups are in a pint.

Why do I need to know all the words to a song I didn’t even like when it first came out? Why do I need to remember what I was wearing to some random high school day. For instance I can still remember what I was wearing the day my picture was taken for the senior poll. Not because the picture was in the yearbook. I haven’t looked at that in years. I simply REMEMBER. I also remember that I woke up late that day. Why? Why do I remember pointless conversations I had with people whose names I can’t remember? I should be able to choose to hit the delete button. This information does me no good. Except. It does. A little bit. Like when playing trivial pursuit or when watching Jeopardy. No one will play games like Cranium (the name of which I could not remember just now, and had to ask my son to remind me of..this is what I’m talking about) with us anymore. Why? Because between my husband and I we have so much useless knowledge taking up space in our brains that we always win. No bragging her, just a simple fact. My sister can attest to this.

Just think of how smart we could all be if we could empty the trash bin in our brains of all clutter. Oh if wishes were horses.....