Things that make you say “Duh!”

Do you sometimes feel like you’re the last to know? Have you made an amazing discovery and then found out the rest of the world has known about it for years?

I was browsing through a book called “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It’s a book I wish I’d written–an amusing compendium of the author’s experience and wisdom, in alphabetical order.

I turned to the “J” section and came across Rosenthal’s musings on her husband’s name: “J-A-S-O-N. J-July. A-August. S-September. O-October. N-November.”

As crazy as it sounds, I had never noticed that the name I gave my older son 33 years ago was a mnemonic for remembering the order of the months, in the way that “ROY G. BIV” has helped billions of schoolchildren learn the colors of the rainbow.

I e-mailed Jason to tell him what I had learned. He replied, “How do you think I memorized the order of the months?” He added a smiley face to mock me.

“Good thing we didn’t spell it J-A-Y-S-O-N,” was my snappy comeback.

I was stunned. What else don’t I know? Well, I don’t know what years Henry Kissinger served as Secretary of State. I don’t know Paris Hilton’s middle name. I don’t know the distance from the earth to the moon. These are all things I could investigate if I had any interest at all, which I don’t.

But here’s the thing. The fact that the letters in JASON spell the names of the months in order is just something you notice or don’t notice. You can’t make a list of things you aren’t aware of. Let’s call it the Curse of Ignorance — you don’t know what you don’t know. As a person who hates to appear stupid, that freaks me out.

It’s much easier to think about what we KNOW we don’t know. Here are some “facts” I didn’t know, as seen on StrangeFacts.com:

• Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!
• The names of Popeye’s four nephews are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye!
• Porcupines float in water!
• It’s against the law to pawn your dentures in Las Vegas!
• Cat urine glows under a black-light!
• Most lipstick contains fish scales!
• The Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts three naked men with their hands on each other’s shoulders!
• StrangeFacts.com uses a lot of exclamation marks!

And because I don’t want you think think I’m totally ignorant, here are some that I knew:

• There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos!
• Should there be a crash, Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane as a precaution!
• No piece of square dry paper can be folded more than 7 times in half!
• Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!

Learning is a life-long pursuit and we all can use some tricks to help us remember things, especially as we get older. In that spirit, let me offer this handy little mnemonic of my own: the name M-A-R-Y is handy for remembering “Mom Ate Radishes Yesterday.”