I have this tendency to remember numbers. It comes in handy for useful things like my bank account number, but I also know a load of numbers I will rarely or never need to know.
For example, my car’s VIN number is 1G2BL35H6GX215808. The license plate on the Plymouth my parents sold in 1994 was 785-FYM. The phone number on the TV ad for Better Blocks about five years ago was 1-800-441-2400. In sixth grade, my locker number was G484, and the combo was 44-6-40.
The old plate number for my car. (Had to register the new one from scratch, long story.)
The PIN number from my old ATM card. (Changed banks.)
My old telephone number.* (Moved.)
Old credit card number. (Issuing bank changed me from Visa to MasterCard with no consent and little warning.)
Access code (presumably expired) to a building I worked in three years ago. (One of those cheap mechanical push-button locks.)
Telephone number for a gun shop that closed (and then mysteriously burned down) eight years ago.
I could probably go on forever.
*[sub]Oddly enough, I have totally forgotten ex-girlfriends’ numbers. I used to call them all the time, but never called myself. Weird.[/sub]:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Yep, I have a brain full of trash like that. I can recite:
License plate # for almost every car I have owned along with the firing order of the engine that was in it.
Drivers License # for me and SO
SS # for me and SO
All my Credit Card numbers and exp dates
most of the instruction set for the RCA 1802 micro I worked with in the late 70s.
names and faces are gone almost instantly. I’m getting old and some stuff is fading away…
I know the NABP number for the pharmacy that I worked at 4 years ago. Along with the 1-800 number to place orders, my boss’s password (he no longer works there), and the 4 digit security code to bypass the alarm. (They have since changed it, I’m sure.)
I also remember my ex-fiancee’s phone number from when he lived in Savannah 8 years ago. We haven’t spoken in 4 years. Oddly enough, the area code and first 3 digits appear in my bank account number, in order.
I also remember my SO’s old cell phone number, which he got rid of several years ago. Also, every address he ever lived at.
The kicker is that I couldn’t tell you my home phone number nor my cell phone number without looking it up in my phone.
Damn that UncleBeer, I’ll be singing that all night.
CTMVW26KR5KNSIBK code to unlock all items in Castlevania II that I played in 1989.
I know 5 Social Security numbers, so many 800 numbers I could make my own toll free phonebook, many many peoples bank pin numbers, never really thought about license plates though, guess I have a new hobby.
SSN and DL# for me and SO
All bank account numbers
Most of our friends’ phone numbers
Old phone numbers
Haven’t gotten into memorizing credit card numbers or VINs
Friends’ computer passwords
License plate numbers (Co-worker who quit around 1993: DVV-208)
It helps that I “see” numbers as “words,” and remembering the number is just a matter of remembering how to “spell” it. I’m also good at devising private mnemonics to help.
I can still remember my mom’s work phone number from back in the mid-1970s.
My ex-husband’s SSN, even though we divorced 12 years ago. I have no idea what my current hubby’s SSN is. In my defense, though, I had to write my ex’s SSN on the check everytime I went to the base grocery store.
My old phone number, even though I moved out in 1986 and my parents don’t live there anymore. Grandmother’s phone number and her cousin’s phone number, even though they’re dead and haven’t lived in those houses for many years.
The monthly payment to my first car.
If something doesn’t scan at the grocery store, I can tell the cashier exactly how much the item costs.
I’ve got the phone number for the call-in show “Garden Hotline” on WOR-AM in New York, hosted by Ralph Snodsmith - a program my Mom listened to all the time. I never called the number, and I haven’t actually heard the phone number broadcast in almost 20 years. But I remember the inflection that the host used when saying it.
Some useless numbers I remember:
[ul]
[li]Phone numbers to places I don’t work anymore (one of which is out of business, even)[/li][li]Phone numbers of my sister’s friends, who no longer live at those numbers[/li][li]My sister’s old phone number[/li][li]My school ID number[/li][li]Employee/ID numbers from old jobs[/li][li]A phone number that I don’t even remember what it belongs to[/li][li]588-2300 (Empire Carpets)[/li][li]The number to do a reverse phone lookup (get an address from a phone number)[/li][/ul]
5-35-8 (combo lock on my locker for X-C and track)
19-9-39 (combo for my junior high locker)
1-888-845-8084 (toll free number for a Sprint calling card)
660195419 (student ID number) --1419 (social security number)
3--* (combo for lock on one of my fraternity houses) --3 (combo for the other house)
1895 (code for turning off the alarm in my house (don’t even think about trying to rob me, the panal is on the inside))
1.6x10^-19 (electric charge on an electron or proton in C (well, an electron is the negative of that, technically))
9.11x10^-31 (mass of an electron, in kg)
6.02x10^23 (Avogadro’s number, in mol^-1)
3.00x10^8 (speed of light (roughly) in m/s)
I was walking through a Ripley’s Believe it Not Museum in Atlantic City, right next to the Steel Pier (Boy, that’ll date me!), and I saw the following bit of trivia:
