“my phone number?” I replied to the check out lady at Pottery Barn Outlet
“yes ma’am. Your home telephone number” she must have thought I didn’t understand the question or that I was irritated by it.
She was half right. I am irritated by it. I am NOT irritated at the girl asking, I am irritated at the concept. I understand this is how a company tracks it’s target audience and does low cost mail out advertisements. I get that. And still. It bothers me. I do not wish to be asked ANY questions while checking out at ANY store. (exceptions would be seasonal small talk “Hot enough for ya?” or “You finished with all your Christmas shopping?” these questions are okay. Additionally I do not mind chatter regarding my attire “ohh, I love those earrings” or the occasional inquiry as to where one might obtain a handbag such as the Vera Bradley I am carrying. All of these types of questions are okay with me, not necessary, but okay.
My best reasoning is this: I have too many numbers/passwords and names to manage.
There are PIN numbers for no less than 4 different debit card/credit cards. There are PIN numbers for my cell phone voice mail, work phone voice mail, and my work-cell phone voice mail (of course they are not all the same…have you met me?) and my bosses voice mail. There is a security alarm code, The fireman’s garage door code (the fact that I remember this is crazy since I only knew it for the purpose of painting while he wasn’t at home and since then he changed the code and gave that information to me. I remember the first one AND now the new one) TK’s mail box number at the UPS store, the log in for face book, my space, AOL, Gmail, Outlook, Ebay, Paypal, Snap fish, Walgreens photo, Amazon, Itunes and three operating systems used for my work PC. Then there are birthdays and Anniversaries which I almost never get right. Not to mention the names of friend’s pets. (The ninja’s dog-Peanut, Maggies dog, Kittie, (RIP Kittie) The actors dogs-Pomp and Zoe, Sisters dog-Izzie, Little sister’s cats-Van and Harleigh, Aim’s house full O’ dogs, Tink, BW (stands for Bruce Wayne) Einstein and there is another one I can’t recall, Jdub has a dog named Jennie (I never spell it correctly) and just recently he told me that his love has a dog-and I promised to commit that to memory but… See what I mean? And there’s the inanimate objects I have named over the years. My Kitchen-aid stand mixer who is the color of gun metal and the heavy duty version (the pro-6) I named him Gunner, My newest Ipod, I-Tod, (as in “the Todd” from Scrubs) I named my net-book computer Hector, (without reason) and my 2.5 inch square twist phone-Huey (as in Lewis-b/c it’s “Hip To Be Square”). I did not name my cars tho (and I find this a little inconsistent since I obviously name lots of other things) But little sisters convinced me my new car needed a name-thus he was named Maurice. Maurice Nelson the 6th officially-But “Mo Nelson” to those who love him. My point is this, I have, we ALL have lots and lots to remember. For those of you with children the list is even longer b/c let’s face it-the kids want you to remember their names right? and then they have birthdays and social security numbers and favorite pets and stuffed toys they name and teachers and dance instructors and schedules to keep. I also have a mind full of information I really don’t need anymore but can not forget. Like the Preamble to The Constitution. (Thanks so much Miss J Allen for teaching me this in 7th grade) I mean with exception to last Wednesday night in church- I have never once been asked to recite the preamble. And in fairness I wasn’t directly asked to recite it then- I believe it was kind of an open ended rhetorical question-so that doesn’t even count. I also remember what I wore to school the first day of school every school year. I can recall the color of socks my dad was wearing and the song on the radio as he drove his team to the High-School boys State Tournament in 1984. Oddly enough I recall the numerical combination to the lock on a musician friend’s brief case-He gave me the code on a Friday in 1997…I was wearing Doc Martin lace up brown leather shoes (purchased for Christmas by my BFF Darla the previous year) Jeans and my room-mate Natalie’s red half zip fleece. See….. My mind is like a steel trap-I like to say…but only when it comes to things of little use. My phone number…well. Somehow it escaped. 
All of this is true but it serves as a nice lead to tell you...
This weekend I will begin painting some numbers. I could have just said that at the start but what a short blog this would have been.
