Eureka Moments

I love eureka moments. I'd like to think that I'm intelligent, and life experience--in the academic arena, at least--would bear this out. Common sense, alas, is another matter. When I was twelve, I once tried to demonstrate my independence to my mother by baking brownies. It might've worked but for the fact that I put a metal baking pan in the microwave. Yeah, not my finest hour. God was looking out for me, though, because the microwave never exploded despite manufacturing lightning inside itself for several minutes. It did, however, produce an eerie, ozone smell that lingered for hours.

Anyway, for all my book smarts, I have a habit of benign forgetfulness. I don't forget important dates or project deadlines or billing dates, but I often forget just what I've bought on a given outing. As a consequence, I'll wind up with multiple copies of the same book or CD because I've forgotten that I bought it six months ago and promptly buried it under subsequent purchases. Because of my consumer's Alzheimer's I own two copies of House of Leaves, two copies of Bill Engvall CDs, and two copies of Dwight Yokam's greatest hits.

A few months ago, I bought a copy of Caleb Carr's Angel of Darkness. Three weeks ago, I was browsing in the bookstore in search of more brain candy. I stopped in the mystery section. Caleb Carr caught my eye. Oooh, I thought. I like The Alienist; maybe I'll like this, too. I picked it up and read the blurb.

"Can I get this?" I asked Roomie. It was near the end of the month, and I sometimes spend my way into the Campbell's diet with ill-advised impulse purchases.

In the end, I decided to save the eight bucks. Later that night, I was rummaging through my criminal to-read pile. What should I find but a pristine copy of Angel of Darkness. ~facepalm~

Even worse are the books I didn't remember I had until I find them. I found a copy of Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things and Anansi Boys under a pile of DVDs. I clearly remember buying them, but if you had asked me if I owned them before that moment of discovery on the futon cum bric-a-brac repository, I would've said no and believed it. My brain subscribes to the out of sight, out of mind approach. If I set something aside with the intention of dealing with it later, I'm apt to forget about it for several months, until I bumble upon it while looking for something else.

Why am I talking about this? Because Roomie bought me two hand pies from McDonald's. I know they're sitting there. I will no doubt look at them numerous times over the next several hours. But I also know this: Come nine o'clock, I'm going to get the munchies. Eager for some yummy yummy yummy for my tum tum tummy, I'll begin to forage. Despite the fact that they've been right in front of me for several hours, I'll have completely forgotten about the pies, and when I catch sight of them, I'll howl with the crazed delight of a suburban housewife selected for The Price Is Right. I'll even throw in the flapping toddler fists and the frenetic lunge for the glorious silver phallus of the microphone. It'll be a sad, sad moment of the sort that makes most folks shake their heads and cluck mournfully about "those poor, touched souls."

And maybe it is sad. I don't know. It's never been sad for me. In fact, I've always been fond of my eureka moments. They break up the monotony of living and give me hope for what I might find around the next corner if I just keep digging.