I think we tend to give our brains too much credit. I mean, we rely on them to do stuff for us, stuff like thinking and spelling words correctly and remembering stuff. Yeah, I expect my brain to remember stuff, and I used to think it was pretty good at it, but I'm coming to believe that was just me and not my brain.
My brain does things like this:
My kids and I are leaving for school in the morning. My daughter is always the first one out the door. By a lot. I'm not really sure if she thinks that makes her brother (or me) go faster, but it doesn't. At any rate, she'll ask me to unlock the car for her (which I can do from inside the house, thank to modern technology (AWESOME)), and go sit in it while her brother is still doing things like packing his lunch (which is already made, he just has to put it in his lunchbox), so, sometimes she's out there for a while. I'm frequently standing around in my jacket and my hat trying hard not to say, "We're going to leave without you," because he would just come back with "Okay!" and go back to his DS or whatever it was he was doing before he had to get ready to go. Anyway, we finally get out the door and I'm dreading getting into the car and having to listen to my daughter complain about how it's already 7:53 and she wanted to leave at 7:50, and the boy and I get in the car and she starts in on why it took so long and I start the car and say, "Did I lock the front door?"
One might think at that point that I'm asking Chompyhead (that's what we'll call the boy for reasons I may explain sometime), but I'm not, because I know he wasn't paying any attention. No, I'm asking my brain. Because, see, probably, my brain did tell my hands somewhere in the getting-out-of-the-house part to lock the front door, but I wasn't paying any attention to that part, because I just wanted Chompyhead to get out the door and into the car. And what does my brain say? "I don't remember."
"Seriously? That was, like, 30 seconds ago!"
My brain shrugs at me, "I don't remember."
That, of course, makes me angry, and I have to say, "What's the point of you, then?!" and climb back out of the car to check the door which is, of course, locked.
And I can't tell if my brain is laughing at me and chuckling "got you again" or if it really didn't remember, but, if it's going to go to the trouble of locking the door, it could at least let me know that it's done it. If I have to go back and check, what's the point?
And, so, when I'm writing, I don't want to have to think about how to spell words. Theoretically, my brain should know how to spell all of those words, right? Well, evidently not. And I'm not talking about obvious finger mistakes like "teh" instead of "the," I'm talking about words that my brain misspells over and over again. Especially homophones. Come on, Brain! You should know the difference between "peek" and "peak" and "steak" and "stake" and you shouldn't be "oblivious" by typing "obvious" and it shouldn't be "necessary" for me to stop you from typing "neccesary" every freaking time! I mean, come on! You've been doing this for a long time, why am I still having to remind you that it's only one "c"? Especially when I'm willing to give you a pass on "occasionally;" that one's totally on me.
All I want, and I don't really think that this is too much to ask for after all of this time, is that you get it write the first time. See! There you go again. I bet you thought I didn't see that. And it's that kind of thing that makes me wonder if you're doing all of this on purpose just to see if I'm paying attention. Well, I am! And I don't much appreciate having to go back and fix your "mistakes," if that's what they are. You can be replaced, you know.
yeah, yeah I hear you laughing, "Science can't do brain transplants, yet." How do you know? Just because it's not being advertised, doesn't mean it's not going on somewhere. Besides, I have a Brain sitting right here next to my computer just waiting for the chance to take over the world!
(My Brain with his pet Yoda.)
Okay, so that taking over the world stuff is why it's still sitting on the computer, because I don't want that kind of trouble, but...
Your job, Brain, is to do the spelling. That's what I have you for. You're supposed to be the one stopping me and saying, "hold on there, buddy; 'necessary' only has one 'c'," not the other way around. If I have to do all the spelling and checking and all of that, what do I even have you for?
You know what, I can, too, get along just fine without you. I think you're really more trouble than you're worth. And, no, they don't check for brains before they give you a driver's license. That's dumb? Well, yeah, I know, but have you seen the other people out there driving around? You, of all brains, ought to be able to recognize brainless driving when you see it, so you can't hold that one over my head. I'll just drive like everyone else; they seem to get along just fine. Oh, I'll be dead within a week? We'll just see about that!
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