Mental Buckets

There are definitely some things I don't remember specifically, but only by general category -- in mental buckets, if you will.

One of these buckets is "things that get me in". It contains my keys and my Metrocard, and to a lesser extent my work pass. The mistakes I make here are very specific.

I will sometimes take out my Metrocard as I approach my front door at the end of a workday, just as I would take out my keys. (I did this tonight, in fact.) I typically keep both of these items in the outside pocket of my purse or in the right-hand pocket of my jacket, for ease of access. Both of them need to be removed to be used, and I generally take them out just a hair's breadth before they are needed to avoid delay. It's the end of the day, and I'm tired, which increases the possibility of being on automatic pilot.

For similar reasons, I sometimes find myself approaching the subway turnstiles with my keys in hand. This, too, I've only observed at the end of a workday.

Less frequently, as I come into work (either at the start of the day or after lunch), I pull out either my Metrocard or my house keys. This requires a somewhat greater gap in attention, since I do not have to pull out anything to get into work; the card reader recognizes my work pass through my purse. Still, it has happened, perhaps when I'm a bit distracted.

But I have never tried to use my work pass to get in to the subway or my house. The mechanism is too different; even if I'm exhausted and inattentive, it never occurs to me to wave my purse at the turnstile or the front door.

Another of these buckets is "women's names that begin and end with an 'A'". Yes, to me it takes a lot of effort to distinguish between names such as Amanda, Andrea, Angela, and Amelia, and even more effort to assign the right name to the right person. At dinner a few years ago, I once called my friend Amanda "Andrea" -- I don't think she heard me, and I almost got away with it entirely, because those who heard initially assumed I was addressing the waitress. That was very embarrassing. At the time, I was also struggling mightily with another (to me) similar name as well. I would test myself silently whenever I saw them, and I usually guessed right, maybe 80% of the time, but that 20% error rate left me terrified to use their names at all for fear of getting it horribly wrong. Now, I know their names perfectly -- it helped to associate the first and last names -- but there's still a slight hesitation as I double-check mentally.