Does your memory fade on the bedpost overnight?

Are you forgetful - who isn’t?

I saw an advertisement in the September/October 2010, issue of The Saturday Evening Post that claimed a magical restorative ingredient called phosphatidylserine may be just the thing to help you recall events that occurred in your life as long as four years ago.  This assumes, of course, that you would want to recall some of the dumb things you did the last four years. 

What about the day at the peak of the real estate market when you paid top dollar for that pretty gingerbread house you can’t give away now? What about that starry, starry night you declared your undying love for someone and he or she told you to get off your knees and get lost? How about that time you just couldn’t resist telling your boss how dumb you really thought he was? Those are memories most people would just as soon forget

But let’s take a positive tack on this. Some memories are worth recalling: the birth date of your favorite grandchild; the day you won three hundred bucks at the slots; the day your car slid on the ice and you wound up doing a 360 in front of an oncoming semi and lived to tell about it.

My favorite memories of the last four years include the day I picked Sam up from the breeder, the vacation trip Kathleen and I took to Santa Fe, New Mexico a couple of years ago, my wife’s family reunion in Montana for her parent’s 50^th wedding anniversary, and learning that my niece’s liver transplant was successful.  

I hope I never forget the good memories. It’s nice to know there’s a pill to take if I do. But as you probably already have figured out I don’t trust pills much, especially these days with all the counterfeit drugs on the market. What if I took a memory pill and it turned out to be something like LSD? My memory might take off on a bad trip and I might hallucinate that I had done something totally weird or criminally insane when I didn’t. Remember Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movie Total Recall? Whoa!

What good is a pill that only takes you back four years anyway? Why not 10 years or 20 years? Truthfully, the memory pill I’m looking for is the one that can help me remember where I put my car keys 10 minutes ago or the one that can help me suddenly remember why I’m driving down a particular street totally clueless as to what I’m doing there or where I’m headed. I’d really, really like a memory pill that could help me instantly remember a friend’s name when seeing him or her in the grocery store for the first time in several months.

To remember or not to remember. That is the question. Funny though, I can’t seem to recall the answer.