She and I both are married, so it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

Daddy’s short-term memory seems better on some days than others. I am intrigued by the stories he recalls and repeats, while other events escape his mind minutes after they occur. For example, Daddy regularly mentions the attractive woman who works at the Cock-eyed Spaniel*, a hole-in-the-wall hamburger joint in Cartersville* where he and Mother often ate on the way home from his memory training at Emory. (They only recently discovered the restaurant, so it’s not stapled to Daddy’s identity like the Varsity.) Ryan and I dined at the Cock-eyed Spaniel on Saturday, and now I understand why images of said woman’s physique would permeate the male brain.

“What are her boobs like?” I once asked Mother.

“They’re really nice. Full and round but not too big.”

“Mother. Guess where I ate lunch today,” I salivated into the phone on Saturday.

“Panera Bread.”

“No.”

“Let me see. Ewww! The Varsity?”

“Ew. NO.”

“You didn’t eat at the Cock-eyed Spaniel, did you?”

“I did. You’re right. Her boobs are nice.”

“Aren’t they?”

I suppose I am fascinated but not surprised that a set of tan breasts spilling from a spaghetti strap tank top would overpower the erosion in Daddy’s frontal lobe, while a monotonous series of memory exercises would dissipate along with most conversations, movie plots and what Mother served for supper.

“I saw that good-looking woman at the Cock-eyed Spaniel today,” I told Daddy when Mother put him on the phone. “She’s hot.”

“Yeah, but she and I both are married, so it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.”

In contrast to Daddy’s vivid recollection of the woman, he barely can tell me anything about his memory training at Emory.

“How was Emory?” I’ve inquired.

“Boring.”

Apparently Daddy took computerized tests that placed furniture in a room, later forcing him to revisit the same room and decide whether the objects had moved. The exams also presented Daddy with a statement, and several questions later another statement appeared on the screen; Daddy had to determine whether the sentence had changed in the interim.

“I believe it would stress a normal person out,” he said.

To be fair, I will say that I’ve been brushing up on my coding skills through some training courses online. I remember the Cock-eyed Spaniel lady’s boobs much more than the lessons I read about CSS 3. Maybe the Emory researchers should arrange good-looking women in rooms instead of furniture, and then require test takers to answer questions based on their placement. Or perhaps Daddy’s new fervor for the Cock-eyed Spaniel means the memory training at Emory had a positive effect after all.

*Name and location have been changed to avoid awkwardness and embarrassment.