Memory is one of my favorite games. 

Today I’m heading home through the drizzle (Water? From the sky? In AUGUST?), radio cruising along, and a long trumpet G — it is a G, isn’t it? — swells through the car’s cabin. 

“Short Skirt, Long Jacket” by Cake, of course. One of my favorite-favorite songs, because I want to be the girl with a mind like a diamond. Plus once upon a time I wore those short skirts and long jackets. Did PC maintenance under desks in them, but I digress. 

That’s not the game part. 

The game? Every time I hear that note, I not only connect with everything I just told you, but at the same time I laugh about something unrelated. How does that work?? I still haven’t figured it out, 

and you’d rather know the something unrelated.

Exactly one time, ten nearly fifteen years ago, I sat in a church staff meeting and heard that note. Watched my co-worker dive under the conference table to smother his phone, while our boss blinked and said, “What was that?” Our former-youth-leader boss, who wrangled teens in the period this song was first popular.

Simultaneously my co-worker and I said, “Short Skirt, Long Jacket.” I added, “I thought you’d recognize it-?”

My co-worker blushed and said, “It’s the ringtone I use for my wife.”

It continues to make me happy to know there are spouses who celebrate minds like diamonds. And that a trumpet-forward song is hard to hide in meetings.