Memory

So I was banging my hand on my forehead all day, trying to remember Troy's last name, and the name of the family whose house I used to go to after school.  No dice.  I remembered it was a fairly common name.  I remembered there was a brother a year or two older than me who grew up to be a shaggy-haired metalhead.  I just couldn't remember their names.

Sailing this evening, a friend brought her eight year old son.  We were putting the boat away, talking about who knows what, when someone brought up Inspector Gadget.  What was Inspector Gadget's dog's name? she asked.  None of us could think of the dog's name.  "Clue?" No, that didn't sound right to me. I searched for the name of the cartoon dog.   "He had a niece named Penny," someone offered.  Oh yeah, Penny.  A door in my mind flew open, somehow, but instead of Inspector Gadget's dog, I remembered Troy's last name.  "Nielson!" I said.  "The family was the Neilsons!"  My friends on the boat looked at me blankly.  Never mind, I said.  Just something I've been trying to remember all day. 

Comments

[Eleanor]

btw, the dog's name was Brain :)

In a related story, my boyfriend wanted to fake-audition for the Duke's Men with the Inspector Gadget theme song.