I know memory isn't a passive record of events. It's more like a re-construction. When this happens, I consistently get the order of things wrong. I often confuse what happened at one time for something that happened at another time. Last night I was watching a gag reel from season five of Parks and Recreation. In an early scene, Andy asks his young wife April if she's pregnant. April responds saying: "Nooo, we've talked about this ..and what do I always tell you? I wanna' wait till we're 50 and adopt creepy adult twins from Armenia ..!" In another scene, Andy and April are giving Ben advice for a successful marriage. When Andy asks April what other thing she's always telling him, April replies: "Um, don't take it out till I scream!" Now, at the end of the reel, what do I remember? In the first scene where they talk about having children ..I remember April saying: "Nooo, we've talked about this ..and what do I always tell you? 'Don't take it out till I scream'!" I put the dialogue from the other scene here. It wasn't until I replayed the gag reel that I realized my mistake. Although my recollection didn't follow the actual order of events ..it still made sense and even retained some of it's humor. Perhaps we remember pragmatic-sense better than chronological order.
