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Overloading the Machine
Parked
Lila couldn't remember where she parked, in general.
Specifically, she put her key in the wrong Camry, and it worked. She started to drive away, but stopped when a man belly-flopped onto the hood, his eyes ringing with consumer terror. Through the glass, she read the obscenities from his lips and forgave him vigorously for denting her hood. She mouthed an apology, and returned his car to a similar parking spot. He said his name was Alan.
After the hood dent was pulled—she paid for half, over pad thai—and they were married, she drove his Camry all the time, and often forgot where she parked it, even while she remembered the story or lost her keys.
Usually, Lila didn't forget where she parked their house. Looking everywhere, she found some keys in his pocket. No key worked so she turned around, tripping over a bush that shouldn't have been there, and caught her balance in a patch of wet paint on the side of the house. She didn't like the tone, but coping was easier when she realized it wasn't her house, or her smudged jacket.
It took her a while to get home from there, but after her and Alan were divorced, the wrong house went up for sale, and repainting. She bought it with her share of the assets, and moved in. She had her own keys made, and tossed his into the bush.
You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty
attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool
takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge
which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with
a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it.
Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his
brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing
his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect
order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and
can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every
addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of
the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out
the useful ones.
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet"
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