Saturday Night Routine

Marina, California, 1979-1984:

What were you thinking??? Of course you had baths. You just don't remember all of them.

When you were young, we were in the middle of a big drought in California. Water was rationed. To conserve, we put a brick in the toilet tank to displace excess water. We were encouraged by authorities to not flush the toilet every time it was used. (Thankfully, that was discretionary!) We installed low flow shower heads in the showers. Even the water from washing our clothes was drained into the vegetable garden. We used a biodegradable laundry detergent that would not hurt the vegetables. So weekday baths did exist, just not every night if they could be avoided. I bathed you on week nights when you were dirty.

Come Saturday night, however, you were required to take a bath so you would be clean for Sunday. I made such a big deal of the Saturday night baths, that you don't remember the weekday cleanups.

From your perspective now, you only remember the Saturday night baths and not the ones taken during the week.

How similar this is to what we do remember. Do we only remember those things we did on a regular basis, or do we remember the things we did that were not scheduled? How can we keep our memories accurate? Just remember . . . you did take baths.