Superior Autobiographical Memory is not a disease, but a recent discovery in six phenoms who all display the unique ability to recall their entire lives at-will. And boy, do they have a lot of will. Like Olympic athletes, each of the participants perform mental gymnastics, rattling off their personal trivia to audiences collectively yawning and screaming to find their off switch.
“Each of the diagnosed subjects with Superior Autobiographical Memory displays obsessive compulsive behavior.”
Some might ask is total recall a curse? While I say…what’s the question again? I can’t even remember the name of my only daughter, let alone recall what I had for dinner eleven years ago on a Sunday, the night before nothing of any importance occurred in my life. Such attention to detail is…well, it’s boring, and it also borders on obsessive.
And that’s something each of the phenoms display in common: Obsessive Compulsive Behavior. Marilu Henner, who once drove a taxi on some show whose title escapes me…Anyway, Marilu has a closet to die-for with rows of shoes all neatly displayed in pairs so you can see the toe of one and the heel of the other. As she proudly showed off her closet to Leslie Stahl of Sixty Minutes, I kept asking myself whether Stahl was legitimately interested in her beautiful mind, or was she there to shop for a pair of designer pumps?
Not surprisingly, five out of the six subjects were not married, and Marilu was on husband number three. I mean, come on, is there any way any of these super computer geniuses will ever allow their dates to win an argument? I don’t think so.
Also, the three men were, by some strange coincidence, all lefties, while the three women were not. I have no clue why anyone would find that fact particularly noteworthy, but I thought I’d mention it, because I’m a lefty, though I’m not a man, I’m not overly compulsive and haven’t got much of a memory to speak of.
Though I’m having much fun picking on these phenoms, scientists have been busy picking their brains to see what makes them tick. MRI’s on all the subjects have shown expanded areas in the temporal lobe of their brains, though doctors aren’t sure whether the area is larger because the subjects exercise their memory more than most or simply because they’re born with greater access to this part of the brain. My personal theory is a new master race of mentally superior and/or fanatical beings is being bred from DNA that can be traced back to the Tiger Mom and Alex Trebek. They are, in my opinion, the brave new world’s Adam and Eve of the future.