FLAT TIRES AND FASHION

By Dan Miller 

June 3, 2008 

Here's a perfectly good example of the different ways people are apt to think back on the same event. 

I was driving toward our lunch destination on a nice Sunday afternoon, accompanied by my wife Karen and our daughter McKensie. 

We happened to pass a house that sparked a particular memory for all of us. 

It had happened about 6 or 7 years earlier. 

"Do you remember the time I pulled into that driveway right there with a flat tire, and spent at least 2 hours changing it?" I asked. 

"Yes I do" Karen said, "I was wearing my white ballet pumps with blue bows that I got in France.... and my navy skirt with white polka dots, and a white sweater." 

Now I know that's exactly what she said to me because -- astonished that she would recall such details -- I asked her to repeat it, and I wrote it down! 

To be fair -- on the day of the flat tire -- her memory was probably super-charged by the lingering fear that she was going to have to exit the car and help me change the tire, and she knew she wasn't exactly wearing 'work clothes'. 

Still, it amazes me. 

I've said it before.... most days, if you tell me to look up, or cover my eyes, and describe for you what I'm wearing RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT, there's an excellent chance I wouldn't know. 

Not only can Karen often recall what she was wearing for any particular event, spanning the 29 years since I met her.... she can even remind me of what I was wearing when we ate at a little catfish place in Ashland City 12 years ago. 

As for my daughter's recollection of the tire-changing caper, she just remembers that Daddy was "kinda grumpy" that day.

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