I’m a Scorpio,' chirped the prettiest girl in my 9th grade geography class, flashing a brilliant smile. 'What sign are you?'

I swallowed nervously. After an awkward pause, I felt my face grow warm. I knew nothing about astrology, and up till that moment it never mattered to me. But I confronted a more serious problem than ignorance of astrology, something far more embarrassing. I couldn’t recall my birthday.

This is apparently due to a congenital glitch in my brain, which episodically prevents me from accessing even well-rehearsed knowledge. On this particular occasion the timing was disastrous.

I stammered, 'Uh, I was born in March, early March, so I guess that makes my sign feces.'

She shook her head, 'Don’t you mean Pisces?'

The temperature of my face spiked to 800 degrees as she swiveled around to speak with the normal-brained fellow seated on her opposite side.

My defective memory played a surprisingly beneficial role years later when an evangelical lady decided to liberate me from my theological doubts, assuring me that belief in God was completely rational. As an enthusiastic new skeptic, hungry for victories, I mercilessly chewed up her arguments. When she seemed to run out of new arguments, I smiled. She protested that just because she couldn’t instantly recall every fact or experience that justified her belief, that didn’t mean she lacked a rational basis for belief. It just meant that she didn’t have the instant recall of a computer.

Was her taking refuge in a poor memory a dodge? Maybe. But, in light of my own memory deficiencies, I was sympathetic to her plea. I suggested that she gather her thoughts on the topic and we could have a follow-up discussion later. She declined, saying she was too busy, but she recommended a book for me to read. I was unfamiliar with the book, so I pulled a pen and paper from my pocket and asked her to repeat the name of the book.

Her eyes scanned the pen and paper, then she looked up at my face. Her harsh expression softened. At that moment it dawned on me that my taking note—literally taking note—of her opinion was important to her. It signaled that perhaps I took her seriously, as an individual of merit. And it dawned on me that that is precisely what I had failed to do. I had treated her as an intellectual punching bag, beating her mind closed like a tin can. Once I learned to listen courteously, our battle of ideas deescalated to a sharing of ideas. —Daniel K Chaney