Yet I Still Have Trouble with the Alphabetical Order of the Letters Between "F" and "L"

I realized just the other day that over time in the course of shopping online I have memorized my 16-digit credit card number without having the slightest intention of doing so. I don't even pull the card out of my wallet anymore to confirm the number after typing it in. I know it. I did not intend to know it. That I know it disturbs me in several ways, not the least of which is the fact I have used my credit card so much that it is now a tool that fits rather too comfortably in my hand.

Under pressure I still have trouble remembering my home phone number. I do know my social security number and my wife's social security number, but I have to "play" with both in my head before writing either down because I tend to jumble the numbers. I have to say them aloud as a clue to memory.

But not my credit card number. It's in my fingers now, as are the card's expiration date and the three-digit number on the back of the card that serves as the final trip wire against fraud.

I'm curious, oh gentle reader (the adjective deals with social caste, people; not with a tenderness of disposition): What numbers have seeped into your memory almost against your will?

Oh, by the way.

I can never remember the license number on either of our cars. Is that because they mix letters and numbers? Or does it have something to do with the anxiety of checking into motels 40 years ago, convinced that we were going to be asked to show a marriage license, a practice that my friends in college all swore was true at least half the time -- the practice, not the swearing.

But that's another story about another time.