One of my numerous SUPERPOWERS is my photographic memory. You’ve heard of people with photographic memories, right? There are individuals who live and breathe among us who have the ability to remember everything they see. They can look at a page in a book and remember what it said……forever. They can remember the license plate number on the get-away car. Grocery list? No problem. And if you can sit next to one in the casino, you’re a sure WINNAH!
Yeah, well…..that’s not the kind of photographic memory that I have. My SUPERPOWER is slightly off-kilter. My photographic memory is more literal. I remember every photograph I’ve ever seen…….and nothing else. *sigh*
I may not be that helpful at a crime scene but this special gift of mine has come in handy …..and then it backfires. For instance:
I was once on a plane and spotted a man that I was sure I had seen before. Does that happen to you? You see someone who you know looks familiar but you can’t quite place where you know them from. It drove me crazy. I spent the entire flight trying to figure out if he worked in my office building. Maybe he was a sales rep that visits my office. Maybe he was one of my husband’s customers. Maybe he was the fish guy at Publix. Did we go to the same church?
Finally during a lay-over in the Atlanta airport restroom, I saw an adorable, blonde haired, blue eyed little girl with her mom. They had on these really cute, Mommy and Me, Lilly Pulitzer dresses. And that’s when it hit me.
They were the wife and daughter of the the guy who owns the pizza place in my neighborhood. It was the Pizza Guy on the plane. Just a few days earlier, I had stood at the counter waiting to pay for our pizza and admired the photograph on the wall of the wife and daughter. I was so relieved to have figured out who the guy on the plane was. I strutted right out of the ladies room and walked over to the waiting husband/father/pizza guy and told him how I had figured it all out. As he eyed me carefully while watching for his family, it didn’t even occur to me that it might seem slightly creepy that I recognized his family from a snapshot on the pizza wall. Hey, can I help it that I have SUPERPOWERS?
And then:
I received a message on facebook a few months ago from an old elementary school friend. He moved to Florida just before we made the jump to middle school. He heard that MHS and I now live in his neck of the woods and wanted to get together some time. I was overwhelmed with work, MHS’s business and life in general and
Yesterday while leaving our local bagel place, I held the door for a woman, teenage girl and man who were mysteriously familiar to me. It wasn’t until they were getting in the car that I realized I knew them from facebook pictures. It was my childhood friend. I felt a little foolish chasing down his car so instead I later sent him a message asking if he had been at the same bagel place that morning. He had.
I didn’t bother to explain that the only reason I recognized him was because he was with the same people who are in his profile pictures. I am nothing if not a fast learner. We’ll just keep my slightly creepy, somewhat stalkerish photographic memorific SUPERPOWERS between you and me.
