“Ben told you to finish the web site and if you don’t do it I swear to God I’m going to murder you in your sleep. I know where you live ..14th street, right? I’m going to get a melon-baller and scoop your eyes out and eat them. And your congressman uncle’s going to have to buy you a dog to drive your eye-less face around. Do you understand me ..?”
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.
April's goals for management training class: "I will pit Ron and Chris against each other. They'll argue about dumb stuff that doesn't matter, and I will bail. Then I'll steal $20 from Chris's wallet and buy pizza with Andy. Oh, and I'll also steal Ron's watch, just for fun."
