This is mostly just to see if others have a similar problem.
Quite often when I’m relying on memory to make a list of some “favorite” or “important” or “necessary” or any number of criteria for making lists, I will get way deep into the process before remembering the most relevant item.
The TV Shows thread
The department stores thread
Best smelling trees
I could continue the list but (as the title suggests) I know I’d leave out the most important one even here.
It happens to me with some frequency, really. I’ll plan a grocery trip around one can’t-do-without item that we’ve run out of and end up putting everything BUT that item on the list.
I think it’s because my brain is more afraid of forgetting the smaller, less necessary items and just assumes it’s going to remember to add the most important items once it’s done purging small stuff into the list.
I know what you mean there, malkavia, and bitter experience has forced me to write down on paper any grocery list with more than three items on it. I’d guess that 90% of the time, if I try to remember more than three items not written down, I will forget one, and it will be the important one.
What I was trying to describe in the OP are those occasions where I will try “from the hip” to join in a thread where a list is being made by posters of favorite, or important or some other noteworthy aspect of something and I will give it my best shot in my first reply, only to see what I really should have said after somebody else mentions it.
Why couldn’t that item, which is clearly superior to my first stab, have come to the forefront of my memory?
It’s as regular as something that’s regular, but I’m afraid to say what it’s as regular as for fear that I will think of something even more regular after I hit “submit.”
In threads like you’ve mentioned, that happens to me all the time. But for the TV thread, I’ll stick with my Mary Tyler Moore Show answer. No one has topped that.
I swear that one of these years I’m going to make a packing list for vacations. Some vacations are different than others, and I don’t always need to pack a beach towel. But I always need medications, nail clippers, and underwear.
Last year I went to Florida and forgot to pack shorts. I ended up wearing grandpa Lloyd’s white shorts, which just looked silly without the loafers and black socks.
