Memory tricks

We went shopping in Epsom the other day, taking my dark brown, bent wood walking stick, as is my custom presently. Don't actually need the thing, more in the way of the props one used to use to boost one's confidence when making presentations - making presentations not being something that I was much good at, despite having had to do them from the age of 12 or so on.

Anyway, we went into various shops, the last of them being Waitrose. On the way home, trudging up West Hill, we realised that I no longer had the walking stick. Instant post-mortem on where exactly we had been and where I might have left the thing. Fairly early on I decided that I had left it at Waitrose. This decision was then bolstered by various bits of memory. I remembered clicking it on the floor there. I remembered hanging it off my now empty basket on the input side of one of their self check out stations (self check out stations which are now starting to catch on and are not quite the wheeze to avoid queuing that they used to be. It has taken several months). I clearly had the thing when we were in Waitrose, which is where, therefore, it must still be.

Got home, activated Google, got the Epsom Waitrose number and phoned them up. Helpful young lady answered and popped across to the self check outs to check. No walking stick. At which point I was puzzled.

But about half an hour later one of the other shops we had been in phoned us up - they happened to have our phone number - to tell me that I had left the walking stick with them.

So the good part of the story is that I got my favourite walking stick back. The bad part is that I think I decided that I had left the thing in Waitrose for reasons unknown then built the memories - presumably from past visits - to substantiate the decision. The sort of thing that bad detectives used to do: make the decision on gut feeling then get the evidence - by hook or by crook. But the memories seemed very real and I was completely convinced.

But then again, maybe there is a simpler explanation. Perhaps the decision was made subconsciously using the confused evidence available about visits to Waitrose with walking stick, visits which had certainly happened before. And I had left the stick there - and recovered it - at least once before. Confused evidence then tidied up a bit and presented to consciousness.