Your brain is storing Robin Hood, but mine's holding onto "Mr. Ed, Mr. Ed, a horse is a horse of course of course" and the ENTIRE Gilligan's Island theme song INCLUDING the part about "the movie star." Meanwhile I cannot remember my own zip code without looking at an envelope. The struggle is real, Dave.
I wonder where they stored that luggage on a relatively small boat. Also, why did Ginger wear a sequined evening gown on this ‘short’ boat trip? And don’t get me started on the myriad uses of coconuts. The writers owe us explanations!
While he did compose a song for it, it wasn’t used and isn’t the famous one we all sing. Here’s EVERYTHING you might want to know about Gilligan’s Island, including ties to Davy Crockett and The Chipmunks (remember them?)
I was disappointed Dave did not recall Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier. Or the eminently hummable theme to Bonanza (bum biddy-bum-biddy bum-bum, bum, Bonanza!). Both were not only childhood favorites, but I could also do a mean 77 Sunset Strip with Kookie lending me his comb.
It is Dave's fault that all of this has shifted to front-of-mind now. And my family finds me (more) intolerable (than usual).
In my defense, my whole family used to gather round the tv and sing-along-with-Mitch and his bouncing ball. Yes, We Have No Bananas was out favorite.
I too used to sing along with Mitch. So disappointing to read in the autobios of both Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, that he was really a manipulative a-hole.
I didn’t know that. I live in fear Mr. Green Jeans’ relatives will publish a tell-all on Captain Kangaroo and lay waste to all my childhood idols, because once the Captain falls, Lamb Chop is sure to follow.
All three of us—the Captain’s surviving original fans—will be devastated.
It is SUCH a comfort to know I'm not alone on this endless three-hour tour. Or as Carly Simon sings it (another ear worm from a long-ago song), "I know that each of us is all alone in the end, but the trip still seems less dangerous if you've got a friend."
Fun fact: there's an episode of Gilligan's Island featuring "Wrongway Feldman" -- someone I can sympathize with for obvious reasons (I even wrote about it). So for a piece about memory loss, it's an even more appropriate jingle :)
I’m SO much younger than Dave, I have completely different cigarette commercials, TV show theme songs, and 60s pop music stuck in my brain. I’m from Minnesota, so I’m too polite to regurgitate any of these ear worms, except, after the comments above, to mention that “here is Uncle Joe, he’s a movin’ kind of slow at the Junction.”
Yes, yes, yes, except mine also has the song from the 70s Enjoli commercial because as a woman, it convinced me I could work, cook, clean and be the world's best lover if only I wore their perfume. It's somewhat comforting to see we're all suffering from the same malady.
Bob Denver insisted on including the two in remaking the theme song. The actress, Natalie Schafer, that played Mrs. Howell, actually cried when the show was picked up for another season. She wasn't wanting it!
Don't forget, "Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid, tastes great. Wish we had some. Can't wait!" I had that and the old Addams Family theme going through my mind periodically. When someone asks me for my phone number? "Um, let me think... I don't call myself."
Came here to note the Gilligan's Island theme first and foremost! Doesn’t help that there are possibly references to “a three hour tour” in the reruns of Frasier, White Collar, Voyager, and whatever else I’m watching again (and again).
...but no one can talk to a horse, of course -- unless, in case, of course, the horse is the FAMOUS Mr. Ed!
Mercifully, for some reason, I never plugged into Gilligan's Island. During the Streaming Era, as we aging multimedia boffins refer to our recent years, I have sometimes been tempted to find it to learn what I missed. [Psst: rent it on Amazon for a mere $2.99 per episode, or catch it on Tubi.] But I [almost] always get distracted by the "Other shows like Gilligan's Island" menu bar, which just ends up leading me to whistle the theme songs to Leave It to Beaver, the Andy Griffith show, and then plunge down the resulting cascade of Wikipedia articles on Father Knows Best, the woman who played Aunt Bee, and who composed the I Love Lucy theme song (and who decided to end it on that melodramatic instrumental sting).
(laughing) My comment left out the all-important three-dots ellipsis which indicates the following 12 hours' research results.
Luckily, my wife knows EVERYTHING about Lucille Ball, so I've offloaded any of my questions about her (Lucy) or the rest of the cast, at least of any of her TV shows. When we were on a two-year cross-country road trip, post-COVID lockdown, one of the pop-cultural backwaters where we spent the most time was Jamestown, NY, Lucy's hometown. Visited her grave (did not genuflect), the National Comedy Center (adjoining the Lucy-Desi Museum), etc.
Now, Francis Bavier -- now THERE was one querulous, bug-eyed honey.
The Skipper actually had a name: Jonas Grumby. And the Professor was Roy Hinckley. Mary Anne Summers. Wikipedia says that Bob Denver referred to his character as Willy Gilligan!
My brain will trade your brain the starting lineup for the 1960 New York Yankees for the real words to “Louie, Louie” and a TV jingle to be named later.
I know there are no real words because I met the Kingsmen--all of them-- when they were in town for a concert. My friend and I talked with them a long time. They were nice young men.
I have the starting lineup for the 1960s Pittsburgh Pirates who won the 1960 World Series when Bill Mazeroski hit a home run to beat the Yankees in the bottom of the 9th inning of the seventh game. That brain space is locked in and not for trade.
Burgess, Stuart, Mazeroski, Groat, Hoak, Skinner, Virdon, Clemente with Haddix, Friend, Law, and Mizell as starters, and Elroy Face’s fork ball in relief
Your reference to the 1960 Yankees has triggered my debilitating PTSD. The Yanks HAD that seventh game. They were crushing...right up until Tony Kubek got hit in the throat by a ROUTINE grounder that took a bad hop. In my memory runners were stepping over his body to round third and score. Then Bill F Mazeroski, the FOURTH leading home run hitter for the Pirates that year, hits a walk-off in the bottom of the ninth, at which point there is NOTHING to do, but throw one of the first four TV trays our family ever owned, across the room. Turns out, my mom and dad and older brother thought of several other things I could have done...but they were a bunch of damn Yankee haters.
"There's a holdup in the Bronx. Brooklyn's broken out in fights. There's traffic jam in Harlem that's backed up to Jackson Heights. There's a scout troop short a child. Khrushchev's due at Idlewild. Car 54 where are youuuuuu?"
Does anyone else remember old phone numbers you’ll never use again, but not know any phone number of people you now frequently call, because your cell phone does that for you?
I’m one misplaced phone away from never being able to talk to anyone I know ever again
I remember my number was VIctor 4-1147. I’m not sure I even knew our area code - we didn’t need them unless calling long distance, which I was very discouraged from doing. Back then, the area code stayed in the area (vs now, where it stays with the phone).
Phone number on 1956 rural Wisconsin party line was 65J12. Our ring was one long and two shorts. I guess my parents wanted to make sure I could call if I ever needed to. I don't recall ever needing to.
HEmlock 8 4772 on a 2 party line. In the modern world I know my daughter's cell phone, but no one else's. It is just to easy to tap the screen.
I am also old enough to remember the telephone operator, who knew everything that was going on, including overhearing my mom talking to her doctor about her second pregnancy and sharing the good news before mom had a chance to tell my father!!!!
Whoa... 8 party line! We had 3 and that was nuts: people listening in, or clicking while you were talking to show they wanted to use the phone, or accidentally picking up the phone and fighting the urge to listen to juicy stuff, or someone mad and making loud noises... this is what I remember as a kid. Wish my parents were around to ask them about their experiences.
I am 77 and still remember our first phone number, but I don't know my husband's cell # I just tap the screen If I squint real hard and hold my left eyebrow just right I can probably call up my grandmother's, my aunt's, a couple of old friends at a minimum But I am too lazy to do that
375-1859! Sung in a jingly tone. And 5913 Flamingo Drive. Long before zip codes. Can I tell you my current phone number? No. But I can recite my son’s number and often provide it to those interested in contacting me for legitimate purposes. My storage is at 98%. I’m looking for a good external drive. Any recommendations?
I predate ZIP codes by about 14 years. Because one of my teachers knew my father worked for the post office, I was assigned a report on ZIP codes. Well he taught me everything there is to know about how the system was set up and then some. (including the connection between our SS# and our ZIP Codes) We have come a long way from Rural Routes and 'zones'
The only telephone numbers I know are my husband’s cell (the first six digits are the same as mine, on purpose) and the landline number I grew up with in Boca Raton, in the 1970-80s. If I’m ever slightly incapacitated and someone asks for an emergency number, I hope I’ll remember to blurt out the former.
I suffer from extreme Google Amnesia. I often open a browser with something in mind and ten seconds later can't remember what the heck I was searching for in the first place. Tried Brain De-Farter supplements to no avail. So I can sympathize.
I found out a while ago that -- at least if you're using the Google Chrome browser -- you can select a word or phrase onscreen, and right-click on it for the opportunity to "Search Google for [your selection here]." For instance, by doing this with the phrase "Google Amnesia" in your comment, I got to read this AI result: "Google Amnesia, also known as the Google Effect or digital amnesia, describes our tendency to forget information that we know we can easily find online, treating the internet as an external memory bank rather than committing facts to our own long-term memory. This happens because we remember where to find information (e.g., on Google) better than the information itself, shifting cognitive effort from encoding to searching, and can be managed with strategies like taking handwritten notes or engaging more actively with digital information."
And of course there's an entire freaking Wikipedia article on this "Google effect":
I was going to write a reply to this five minutes ago, but somehow got distracted and found myself on cologuard.com instead shoftly after clicking on your email notification. Luckily, remembered and here I am. So what happened this morning?
Omg. Don’t get me started on Cologuard! I have an entire SNL skit regarding that…the ups shirts and why they’re brown and how the ups trainees are required to complete their internship doing Cologuard pick-ups and on and on…wait, what were we talking about? I know my phone number from the 1950s….
I don't wear glasses, but my wife does. She has something like 14 pairs of them. Some are specialty glasses, like "My distance glasses," but for the rest their specialties are identified by the room in which she most recently put them down, or picked them up, and then in either case forgot about them. Sample conversation:
Her: "I can't find my glasses."
Me [pointing to one of the half-dozen pairs on the table next to her]: "Er, those?"
Her [laughing]: "No! Those are my guest-bathroom glasses!"
Me: "But, um, we're not IN the guest bathroom."
Her: "I know that! I have to TAKE them there next time I go into the guest bathroom!"
Me: "But---"
Her: "I have to find my kitchen glasses!"
Me: "But we're not in the kitchen, either."
Her: "I know THAT! I'm going into the kitchen NOW!"
Me: "Could your kitchen glasses be the ones hanging around your neck?"
I have specific laundry glasses. As well as 36 other pairs that are useless unless I am in the correct room/location. I feel for your wife. Life is hard.
I have 3 pair in my bookcase headboard, and am about to add another. It seems my normal 1.5 reading glasses only work with the adjustable font Kindle. I need 2.0 for normal printed material. At least post-cataract surgery, I no longer need a prescription lens and can get by with readers from Dollar.25 Tree. (Costco has a nice 4 pack of very good quality readers for about $15) I also have a couple next to me here at the laptop, in the car, in my purse and possible other locations currently unknown to me. The darn things do tend to move around independently or with the assistance of the cats
I haven't asked her -- because, like, HER -- but I suspect my wife would want different lanyards (designs, colors, etc.) for different moods, occasions, reading material. "Oh no, that's my lanyard for biography. My lanyard for thrillers is with my guest-bathroom reading glasses -- could you get it for me?"
I thought I had solved that problem by buying multiple pairs of readers and leaving one in every room in the house, but they all still end up in the same place and I don’t know where that place is. Probably underneath the sofa, or down a deep dark void never to be seen again, like most stuff I drop on the floor.
I have concluded after reflection or something that we were separated at birth. Modestly disappointed that you neglected Davey Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. Born on a mountain top in Tennessee, etc. Would say more but there's something I've gotta do ...
Try singing the Gilligan's Island theme song to the tune of Amazing Grace (or vice versa) to clear that ear worm (but at the risk of the GI or AG ear worm replacing it).
I firmly believe that making the joke caused the whole problem. By announcing loudly what you were doing, you tricked not only your wife and daughter, but also your own brain into thinking it didn’t need to worry about it because someone was clearly on top of things and paying attention.
Every morning I open my ipad and stumble through miles of horrible news and then shut it down again in despair, but on Fridays I think Oh wait, it’s Dave Barry Day! and open it back up. Thank you for giving me a reason not to drive to the airport and leave my ipad on a payment machine (whatever that is, I don’t know these things) and leave it there on purpose forever.
My husband and I just watched that South Park episode last night (DVR, because we wouldn’t remember when it airs on CC) and we were cry-laughing at the song about Kegseth. It was a surprisingly accurate representation.
Dave has definitely been cloning my junk drawer! Item for Item it is essentially a duplicate. I may have a few things he does not... and vice versa but it is essentially the same. Now am I the only one with junk drawers in 4 different rooms?
Fun fact: advertising jingles are stored in the auditory cortex of the brain. Apparently a good stiff martini once a day can help to alleviate any brain worms that may be resident there.
On the bus that took us to elementary school about 65 years ago, we sang a parody version of the Bosco song. "I hate Bosco! It tastes like TNT. Mama put it in my milk to try to poison me!" Then we laughed. That's a disturbing rendition, but apparently we really didn't like Bosco.
Since we were just down the road in Briarcliff and sang "Deck the halls with boughs of holly swaller dollar cauliflower allikazoo..." I'm wondering whether our rendition traveled east.
Your brain is storing Robin Hood, but mine's holding onto "Mr. Ed, Mr. Ed, a horse is a horse of course of course" and the ENTIRE Gilligan's Island theme song INCLUDING the part about "the movie star." Meanwhile I cannot remember my own zip code without looking at an envelope. The struggle is real, Dave.
“A three hour tour, a three hour tour”. Yup, I too have both of those.
Did you ever wonder why the Howells brought so much luggage for a 3 hour tour? That’s been bugging me for 40 years.
The Howells were obviously drug smugglers.
I wonder where they stored that luggage on a relatively small boat. Also, why did Ginger wear a sequined evening gown on this ‘short’ boat trip? And don’t get me started on the myriad uses of coconuts. The writers owe us explanations!
Preach. Those clothes horses really helped out when the others needed something for a dream sequence or other story line, though. 🤣😜🤣😜🤣
🤣
Right?!?
We actually have the venerable composer John Williams to thank for the theme song for Gilligan's Island.
While he did compose a song for it, it wasn’t used and isn’t the famous one we all sing. Here’s EVERYTHING you might want to know about Gilligan’s Island, including ties to Davy Crockett and The Chipmunks (remember them?)
https://thetvprofessor.com/the-history-of-the-gilligans-island-theme-song/
I was disappointed Dave did not recall Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier. Or the eminently hummable theme to Bonanza (bum biddy-bum-biddy bum-bum, bum, Bonanza!). Both were not only childhood favorites, but I could also do a mean 77 Sunset Strip with Kookie lending me his comb.
It is Dave's fault that all of this has shifted to front-of-mind now. And my family finds me (more) intolerable (than usual).
In my defense, my whole family used to gather round the tv and sing-along-with-Mitch and his bouncing ball. Yes, We Have No Bananas was out favorite.
I too used to sing along with Mitch. So disappointing to read in the autobios of both Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, that he was really a manipulative a-hole.
I didn’t know that. I live in fear Mr. Green Jeans’ relatives will publish a tell-all on Captain Kangaroo and lay waste to all my childhood idols, because once the Captain falls, Lamb Chop is sure to follow.
All three of us—the Captain’s surviving original fans—will be devastated.
Yeah, good luck getting to sleep tonight! I had forgotten about the bouncing ball—that was cool!
And Kookies' cameo on Married With Children with Anthrax. What a combination!
😮
Here’s a link to John Williams’ song. I’m a huge fan of his, but have to say the one we all know and love is better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx7A4sxJi7c
Thanks. Now I have a new corny calypso earworm.
wow! did not know that!
Wow! That song seems so beneath John Williams!
It is SUCH a comfort to know I'm not alone on this endless three-hour tour. Or as Carly Simon sings it (another ear worm from a long-ago song), "I know that each of us is all alone in the end, but the trip still seems less dangerous if you've got a friend."
You’re so vain. You probably think this song is about you.
🤣Well, darlin'... of course it is! Isn't everything?
(Well played. And yet another 70s ear worm to replace critical tax information.)
I thought it was:
A corpse is a corpse, of course, of course
And no one can talk to a corpse, of course
Unless of course if the name of the corpse
Is the famous MR. DEAD
Ummm... no. I think that was the equine spinoff from the Addams Family.
Laughing out of control. Thank you!
Fun fact: there's an episode of Gilligan's Island featuring "Wrongway Feldman" -- someone I can sympathize with for obvious reasons (I even wrote about it). So for a piece about memory loss, it's an even more appropriate jingle :)
🤣Well... the World of Dave's Substack is waiting. [tap, tap, tap] Where's the link to this writing???
"Appropriate". Now there's a term I personally seldom experience.
I’m SO much younger than Dave, I have completely different cigarette commercials, TV show theme songs, and 60s pop music stuck in my brain. I’m from Minnesota, so I’m too polite to regurgitate any of these ear worms, except, after the comments above, to mention that “here is Uncle Joe, he’s a movin’ kind of slow at the Junction.”
https://todaysmuse.substack.com/p/a-love-letter-to-the-directionally
Not to scare you, but after reading this (entertaining btw), I'm convinced we share DNA.
Yes, I believe so :)
Yes, yes, yes, except mine also has the song from the 70s Enjoli commercial because as a woman, it convinced me I could work, cook, clean and be the world's best lover if only I wore their perfume. It's somewhat comforting to see we're all suffering from the same malady.
OMG I said that a lot when I was working and raising kids! Now I'm retired, and I can do it all on my timetable. Feel you on this one!
The first season it was, “the movie star…and the rest.” After that they gave the Professor and Mary Anne their moment in the sun.
😮 Impressive! With that level of detail, does your brain have room to accommodate ANYTHING other than Gilligan's Island data?
Nope.
Why would Fran want to retain anything else - which would be obviously less important than Gilligan?
Point taken.
I remember that change.
Bob Denver insisted on including the two in remaking the theme song. The actress, Natalie Schafer, that played Mrs. Howell, actually cried when the show was picked up for another season. She wasn't wanting it!
Don't forget, "Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid, tastes great. Wish we had some. Can't wait!" I had that and the old Addams Family theme going through my mind periodically. When someone asks me for my phone number? "Um, let me think... I don't call myself."
Came here to note the Gilligan's Island theme first and foremost! Doesn’t help that there are possibly references to “a three hour tour” in the reruns of Frasier, White Collar, Voyager, and whatever else I’m watching again (and again).
...but no one can talk to a horse, of course -- unless, in case, of course, the horse is the FAMOUS Mr. Ed!
Mercifully, for some reason, I never plugged into Gilligan's Island. During the Streaming Era, as we aging multimedia boffins refer to our recent years, I have sometimes been tempted to find it to learn what I missed. [Psst: rent it on Amazon for a mere $2.99 per episode, or catch it on Tubi.] But I [almost] always get distracted by the "Other shows like Gilligan's Island" menu bar, which just ends up leading me to whistle the theme songs to Leave It to Beaver, the Andy Griffith show, and then plunge down the resulting cascade of Wikipedia articles on Father Knows Best, the woman who played Aunt Bee, and who composed the I Love Lucy theme song (and who decided to end it on that melodramatic instrumental sting).
Yet you don't bother to dig down to the really important stuff such as "were Frances Bavier and Lucille Ball friends"???
(laughing) My comment left out the all-important three-dots ellipsis which indicates the following 12 hours' research results.
Luckily, my wife knows EVERYTHING about Lucille Ball, so I've offloaded any of my questions about her (Lucy) or the rest of the cast, at least of any of her TV shows. When we were on a two-year cross-country road trip, post-COVID lockdown, one of the pop-cultural backwaters where we spent the most time was Jamestown, NY, Lucy's hometown. Visited her grave (did not genuflect), the National Comedy Center (adjoining the Lucy-Desi Museum), etc.
Now, Francis Bavier -- now THERE was one querulous, bug-eyed honey.
And I even remember the names of the characters on the show. As far as I know, Gilligan had no last name.
The "Cher" of three-hour tours!
The Skipper actually had a name: Jonas Grumby. And the Professor was Roy Hinckley. Mary Anne Summers. Wikipedia says that Bob Denver referred to his character as Willy Gilligan!
My brain will trade your brain the starting lineup for the 1960 New York Yankees for the real words to “Louie, Louie” and a TV jingle to be named later.
There are no real words to "Louie, Louie."
Me gotta go.
yah yah yah yah, yah-yah
Here's a history of the song:
https://www.ratherrarerecords.com/louie-louie/
Me gotta go. Often.
No one knows the real words to Louie Louie ... including the Kingsmen. I know, because I once lived in Portland
I know there are no real words because I met the Kingsmen--all of them-- when they were in town for a concert. My friend and I talked with them a long time. They were nice young men.
I have the Brooklyn dodgers circa 1952.
I have the starting lineup for the 1960s Pittsburgh Pirates who won the 1960 World Series when Bill Mazeroski hit a home run to beat the Yankees in the bottom of the 9th inning of the seventh game. That brain space is locked in and not for trade.
Burgess, Stuart, Mazeroski, Groat, Hoak, Skinner, Virdon, Clemente with Haddix, Friend, Law, and Mizell as starters, and Elroy Face’s fork ball in relief
Berra, Skowron, Richardson ….
Your reference to the 1960 Yankees has triggered my debilitating PTSD. The Yanks HAD that seventh game. They were crushing...right up until Tony Kubek got hit in the throat by a ROUTINE grounder that took a bad hop. In my memory runners were stepping over his body to round third and score. Then Bill F Mazeroski, the FOURTH leading home run hitter for the Pirates that year, hits a walk-off in the bottom of the ninth, at which point there is NOTHING to do, but throw one of the first four TV trays our family ever owned, across the room. Turns out, my mom and dad and older brother thought of several other things I could have done...but they were a bunch of damn Yankee haters.
There are no real words to Louie, Lourie.
Exactly!
Let’s just cover maximum territory with minimum effort, Bob: “We’re Beatrice…”
Yeah. Me too which is why this reply is so short!
"There's a holdup in the Bronx. Brooklyn's broken out in fights. There's traffic jam in Harlem that's backed up to Jackson Heights. There's a scout troop short a child. Khrushchev's due at Idlewild. Car 54 where are youuuuuu?"
Does anyone else remember old phone numbers you’ll never use again, but not know any phone number of people you now frequently call, because your cell phone does that for you?
I’m one misplaced phone away from never being able to talk to anyone I know ever again
Uptown 8- 3340, a three-way party line.
Reciting your comment sounds like the lyrics to a song by, oh, Merle Haggard or somebody.
Wilson 1-5586 (ah-h-h a lifetime ago........)
Juniper 3-5958 (2-way party line)
I was just thinking about that. I still remember the phone numbers of my best friends from childhood, but not those of my own kids.
I remember my number was VIctor 4-1147. I’m not sure I even knew our area code - we didn’t need them unless calling long distance, which I was very discouraged from doing. Back then, the area code stayed in the area (vs now, where it stays with the phone).
Phone number on 1956 rural Wisconsin party line was 65J12. Our ring was one long and two shorts. I guess my parents wanted to make sure I could call if I ever needed to. I don't recall ever needing to.
HEmlock 8 4772 on a 2 party line. In the modern world I know my daughter's cell phone, but no one else's. It is just to easy to tap the screen.
I am also old enough to remember the telephone operator, who knew everything that was going on, including overhearing my mom talking to her doctor about her second pregnancy and sharing the good news before mom had a chance to tell my father!!!!
2098W2
- "Operator, please" / "Number,
please."
- 8 party line
- My "rich" cousin had a private
line: 2363. Still had to go
through the human operator.
Whoa... 8 party line! We had 3 and that was nuts: people listening in, or clicking while you were talking to show they wanted to use the phone, or accidentally picking up the phone and fighting the urge to listen to juicy stuff, or someone mad and making loud noises... this is what I remember as a kid. Wish my parents were around to ask them about their experiences.
4377901 - not my phone number since approximately 1968 - yep. And of course the ‘43’ = GE
Montrose 9-7122. Hasn't been my number since 1975. But it's carved in granite...inside my rock head.
867-2972. There’s a song (867-5309) that has always been dangerously close to making me forget my old childhood phone number.
Just repeated the one from the house where I lived from ages 7-12. I’m 62. Wow.
I am 77 and still remember our first phone number, but I don't know my husband's cell # I just tap the screen If I squint real hard and hold my left eyebrow just right I can probably call up my grandmother's, my aunt's, a couple of old friends at a minimum But I am too lazy to do that
I could remember...until you asked about it. Now it's gone until I try to go to sleep tonight!
375-1859! Sung in a jingly tone. And 5913 Flamingo Drive. Long before zip codes. Can I tell you my current phone number? No. But I can recite my son’s number and often provide it to those interested in contacting me for legitimate purposes. My storage is at 98%. I’m looking for a good external drive. Any recommendations?
I predate ZIP codes by about 14 years. Because one of my teachers knew my father worked for the post office, I was assigned a report on ZIP codes. Well he taught me everything there is to know about how the system was set up and then some. (including the connection between our SS# and our ZIP Codes) We have come a long way from Rural Routes and 'zones'
The only telephone numbers I know are my husband’s cell (the first six digits are the same as mine, on purpose) and the landline number I grew up with in Boca Raton, in the 1970-80s. If I’m ever slightly incapacitated and someone asks for an emergency number, I hope I’ll remember to blurt out the former.
I suffer from extreme Google Amnesia. I often open a browser with something in mind and ten seconds later can't remember what the heck I was searching for in the first place. Tried Brain De-Farter supplements to no avail. So I can sympathize.
I found out a while ago that -- at least if you're using the Google Chrome browser -- you can select a word or phrase onscreen, and right-click on it for the opportunity to "Search Google for [your selection here]." For instance, by doing this with the phrase "Google Amnesia" in your comment, I got to read this AI result: "Google Amnesia, also known as the Google Effect or digital amnesia, describes our tendency to forget information that we know we can easily find online, treating the internet as an external memory bank rather than committing facts to our own long-term memory. This happens because we remember where to find information (e.g., on Google) better than the information itself, shifting cognitive effort from encoding to searching, and can be managed with strategies like taking handwritten notes or engaging more actively with digital information."
And of course there's an entire freaking Wikipedia article on this "Google effect":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_effect
You're welcome. (laughing)
Just happened to me this AM!
I was going to write a reply to this five minutes ago, but somehow got distracted and found myself on cologuard.com instead shoftly after clicking on your email notification. Luckily, remembered and here I am. So what happened this morning?
I am not alone!
Omg. Don’t get me started on Cologuard! I have an entire SNL skit regarding that…the ups shirts and why they’re brown and how the ups trainees are required to complete their internship doing Cologuard pick-ups and on and on…wait, what were we talking about? I know my phone number from the 1950s….
Sounds like a shitty skit (badump)
Have not displaced my IPAD but am consistently looking for my IPhone while talking to a friend and holding it to ear. Not bad for 81.
Not to mention glasses on top of our heads...
I don't wear glasses, but my wife does. She has something like 14 pairs of them. Some are specialty glasses, like "My distance glasses," but for the rest their specialties are identified by the room in which she most recently put them down, or picked them up, and then in either case forgot about them. Sample conversation:
Her: "I can't find my glasses."
Me [pointing to one of the half-dozen pairs on the table next to her]: "Er, those?"
Her [laughing]: "No! Those are my guest-bathroom glasses!"
Me: "But, um, we're not IN the guest bathroom."
Her: "I know that! I have to TAKE them there next time I go into the guest bathroom!"
Me: "But---"
Her: "I have to find my kitchen glasses!"
Me: "But we're not in the kitchen, either."
Her: "I know THAT! I'm going into the kitchen NOW!"
Me: "Could your kitchen glasses be the ones hanging around your neck?"
Etc.
I have specific laundry glasses. As well as 36 other pairs that are useless unless I am in the correct room/location. I feel for your wife. Life is hard.
I have 3 pair in my bookcase headboard, and am about to add another. It seems my normal 1.5 reading glasses only work with the adjustable font Kindle. I need 2.0 for normal printed material. At least post-cataract surgery, I no longer need a prescription lens and can get by with readers from Dollar.25 Tree. (Costco has a nice 4 pack of very good quality readers for about $15) I also have a couple next to me here at the laptop, in the car, in my purse and possible other locations currently unknown to me. The darn things do tend to move around independently or with the assistance of the cats
Ummm, one pair of reading glasses on a lanyard around my neck. Why complicate things? Don't we seniors have enough to remember as it is? 😆
I haven't asked her -- because, like, HER -- but I suspect my wife would want different lanyards (designs, colors, etc.) for different moods, occasions, reading material. "Oh no, that's my lanyard for biography. My lanyard for thrillers is with my guest-bathroom reading glasses -- could you get it for me?"
After you’ve searched the entire house for them.
And the cars... and called your kids to see if you left them at their houses... and... 😆
I thought I had solved that problem by buying multiple pairs of readers and leaving one in every room in the house, but they all still end up in the same place and I don’t know where that place is. Probably underneath the sofa, or down a deep dark void never to be seen again, like most stuff I drop on the floor.
And all of the cat toys
YES!! 🤦🏻♀️
Yep.
I have concluded after reflection or something that we were separated at birth. Modestly disappointed that you neglected Davey Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. Born on a mountain top in Tennessee, etc. Would say more but there's something I've gotta do ...
Kilt him a bar when he was only three.
I remember "Kilt hisself a bar when he was only 3"
Aslo...thank you, Dave.
Now I will be singing “I love Bosco” until 2047.
My brain just evicted valuable tax information to make room for it.
Ahahahahhahaha!!! 🤣🤣🤣
My brain's been singing Robinhood for 5 hours regardless of numerous attempts to change the station............aaaaaaaaaaaack!!
I hear you pain, and it has boomeranged to create yet another ear worm.
Try singing the Gilligan's Island theme song to the tune of Amazing Grace (or vice versa) to clear that ear worm (but at the risk of the GI or AG ear worm replacing it).
I firmly believe that making the joke caused the whole problem. By announcing loudly what you were doing, you tricked not only your wife and daughter, but also your own brain into thinking it didn’t need to worry about it because someone was clearly on top of things and paying attention.
Someone works at the airport methinks.
Good morning Dave, It must be Friday….. sometimes it’s hard to remember that all day.
Thanks for the story about your uh…. Attention problem, I have that too but it is mostly about where are the car keys. I my pocket.
LOVED the junk drawer inventory…. As a child it was the most fascinating part of the house.
Right now the song that plays in my head is from South Park.
“ Pete Hegseth is a f——g douche.”
Have a great weekend!!!
Every morning I open my ipad and stumble through miles of horrible news and then shut it down again in despair, but on Fridays I think Oh wait, it’s Dave Barry Day! and open it back up. Thank you for giving me a reason not to drive to the airport and leave my ipad on a payment machine (whatever that is, I don’t know these things) and leave it there on purpose forever.
Well, THAT little ditty is well worth the head space, IMHO. 🤣👏🏻🤣👏🏻🤣
My husband and I just watched that South Park episode last night (DVR, because we wouldn’t remember when it airs on CC) and we were cry-laughing at the song about Kegseth. It was a surprisingly accurate representation.
Dave has definitely been cloning my junk drawer! Item for Item it is essentially a duplicate. I may have a few things he does not... and vice versa but it is essentially the same. Now am I the only one with junk drawers in 4 different rooms?
Yes.
Why not just Super Glue your iPad to the airport parking machine? That way you'll always know where it is.
Brilliant!
I cannot hear Robin Hood without singing Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, riding through the night. Redistributing the lupines
😆 'I bring you...lupines!'
Lupindanore.... extra-or.... dinary!
Is that Lupinado?
I happen to know that *this* is the Lupin Express!
Not neglecting Professor Lupin the werewolf
He steals from the poor and gives to the rich…stupid *itch (are we allowed to say bitch on Substack?)
This redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought
Also…is Dennis Moore a Republican?
I love it all, but especially the description of the kitchen drawer.
My brain worm is the Nair commercial:
“WHO wears short shorts?
WE wear short shorts.”
Yyyeeeessssssss!!!!!
Fun fact: advertising jingles are stored in the auditory cortex of the brain. Apparently a good stiff martini once a day can help to alleviate any brain worms that may be resident there.
And if it doesn't alleviate the brain worm, you don't care anymore!
“Come and listen to a story bout a man named Jed, poor mountain’er barely kept his family fed…etc.”
And then one day…
He was shootin' at some food.
And up from the ground came a bubblin' crude.
Oil that is.
Texas tea.
The next thing you know old Jed's a millionaire.
His kinfolk said, "Jed move away from here."
🤔Here my memory runs out.
…Said “ Californey is the place ya oughtta be” so they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly! Hills, that is. Swimmin’ pools! Movie stars!
Teamwork!!! 🤣👏🏻🤣👏🏻🤣👏🏻🤣
On the bus that took us to elementary school about 65 years ago, we sang a parody version of the Bosco song. "I hate Bosco! It tastes like TNT. Mama put it in my milk to try to poison me!" Then we laughed. That's a disturbing rendition, but apparently we really didn't like Bosco.
We sang that parody, too. I think all American children did. We were united, as a nation.
Since we were just down the road in Briarcliff and sang "Deck the halls with boughs of holly swaller dollar cauliflower allikazoo..." I'm wondering whether our rendition traveled east.
'Tis the season!
Jingle bells, Batman smells,
Robin layed an egg.
The Batmobile lost a wheel
and the Joker got away… hey!
Yep. I sang every word with you! 👏🏻🤣👏🏻🤣👏🏻🤣