I switched from a bank to a credit union two years ago. For the life of me, I cannot remember my credit union account number. I can remember my bank account number — X68 XX57 734 — even though it won't do me a bit of good (nor you, either, which is why I posted it). In fact, sometimes I still write that bank account number.

The same thing happens with old phone numbers. I still accidentally give out the phone number from our old house, even though we moved three years ago.

And yet I never have problem with dates when the year changes...

I'm able to remember my credit union account number, but sometimes I get stuck on my telephone number. I also have trouble with my office numbers, partly because the area code is one digit away from the area code I grew up in, and partly because the fax number suffix is one middle digit off from the telephone number suffix (I guess that's supposed to make things easy, but not for me).

Sometimes I write down the wrong unit number of the condo I'm in, because it's a few digits off of the apartment number I previously lived in in another building.

And only recently have I succeeded in remembering my license plate. It took me 6 years.

When I was a teenager, I used to use my mom's credit card to order software for her company. For the last 16 years I have remembered that credit card number. Once, late at night when ordering airline tickets, I accidentally recited that number as my own.

I also installed PageMaker probably 30 times on their computers. The 16-year-old PageMaker serial number is now ingrained in my memory.

On the first day of a class I took as a teenager the professor handed around a signin sheet where we had to write down our name, phone number, and social security number. One of the guys in the class was someone I had met before, so my eye caught his personal data. I have not been able to forget his SSN since.


Sam

I have selective recall of numbers. For some things that I've made an effort to remember, I will always remember them: the birthdays of people important to me, certain telephone numbers, etc. Other numbers fade away as soon as I'm done using them. I haven't yet tried to remember my financial account numbers since I use them infrequently. I don't recall my primary credit card number either since I can just pull it out. I rely on software to remember these things so I don't have to.

Andrew

4 8 15 16 23 42 ?