It took me a little over ten minutes, as I rattled off 46 states in about 2 minutes and then sat there thinking of which 4 I had overlooked. I figured out 2 of the missing 4 in another 3 minutes, then realized how I should have done this list in the first place: to mentally zip through each two-letter combo AA through ZZ and pick out the two-letter state abbreviations I recognized. (I spent one summer typing form letters and stuffing envelopes for an organization with chapters in all 50 states, and know them all by sight.)
By the time I used this method to ID my last two missing states I was up to 12 minutes, because the last state I had missed was Utah (UT). But had I done this from the get-go I’d have been done in about 5 minutes.
The last 4 I had trouble remembering were: Oklahoma, Nebraska, Minnesota and Utah. In my mental picture of the states I knew all the states I was missing were West of the Rockies, North of Texas and East of California but that was it. I remembered Oklahoma and Nebraska in short order by trying to think of Western state nicknames used by college sports teams (“Sooners” and “Cornhuskers”), but totally blanked on Minnie and Utah until I did my list.
I really should have thought of Minnesota as they have a Major League Baseball team, AND I just visited the Twin Cities area last year for a wedding, even picking up a tuxedo at the Mall of America. I’ve also been to Utah in my life, driving through it between the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. D’oh!
