Memory Quirks

No wonder humans and the functions of a human brain is so complex that we can never figure out fully about how they work. Especially the memory part. It is not like a hard disk in your computers where its a WYSIWYG (what you store is what you get). Sometimes I wish I had a Pensieve (like in Harry Potter series). Makes it a lot easier. The other day I was thinking about how I can recall all the car’s license plate numbers of my friends (because we generally car pool when we are out and about during the weekends) but I can’t remember any of their phone numbers. If I lost my phone, I would struggle a lot. After so many years, I have come to remember my sibling’s and parent’s number and for any emergency all I can do is blurt out a number of my family, who is not in the same city. Similarly, I am pathetic with birthdays. Again because they are family, I remember their’s. Otherwise, I don’t remember any of my friend’s date of birth. Since they are awesome, they remind me a day earlier and I add it to my calendar 😉 Sometime back I had been to a bank to draw a draft. There is a new rule that a draft can be issued only for an account holder, of which I wasn’t aware of, but luckily I did have an account with that bank. The only problem being I hadn’t used it in a long time and it got deactivated. When they asked me for the account number to activate the same, I wasn’t able to recall it. But when I took a pen and a paper, I was able to write it down correctly. That was strange. How can I write something down when I can’t actually recall it to tell it out loudly ? Its been more than a year since I used that account. Memories and its tryst with numbers, I always end up dumbfounded with these.