Monday, April 6, 2009

Where is my mind?

I've had this padlock for at least 10 years. I first bought it to keep my school stuff safe during my PE classes at the BY. It accompanied me to Europe in '99 - effectively locking up my borrowed C-bag. You can even see the remains of the sticker the immigration people put on it in London. It spent the rest of its career securing my goods at the gym, until it was locking down our moving truck while driving to UT from Chicago. I must have dialed the combination hundreds of times over the past decade.
That's why it was so disturbing when I suddenly could not remember the combination. Sure it had been a few months since I used it, but still. As I stood in the Gold's Gym locker room, my mind was blank. The problem was that I had used the lock for so long, that I never bothered to write down the combination anywhere. I thought by then it would be hard-wired into my brain, like my social security number or my blood type (check that, I still can't remember my blood type).

At least I realized I didn't know the combo BEFORE clicking it on the locker. I kept racking my brain during the workout trying to remember the combo - I was sure I had it while struggling up the stairmaster, but no. I kept working on it all night until I finally decided to sleep on it. Morning did not bring the combination to my mind. I was really starting to worry when all of a sudden, as I was getting ready to leave for work, I just walked over and dialed in the combo. Where was that hiding? It's like my brain just temporarily misplaced that file or something. It is now clear as day in my head. Seriously? At least it came back to me - I would have hated getting a new one.

2 comments:

jaacen said...

It's almost too bad you remembered the combo. If you hadn't you would have had a 100% legitimate reason to try this (I bought a lock a few years ago just to try it out... and to impress my kid).

Anonymous said...

I seriously have a re-occurring dream (nightmare) about that very thing. I am in junior high school again (aka the nightmare) and I keep dialing my locker combo over and over and can't remember it.