... but I can tell you why fire engines are red.

Why are fire engines red?

Fire engines are red because newspapers are read, too, and two times two is four, and three times four is twelve, and twelve inches is a ruler, and a ruler was Queen Mary, and Queen Mary was a ship that sailed on the sea, and in the sea there are fish, and on fish there are fins, and everyone knows that the Finns fought the Russians, and fire engines are always rushin' around, and THAT'S why fire engines are red!

A magician shared that little wordplay at a company picnic my father's former employers had one summer, circa 1988. For some reason, though I heard him say it only once (and there was no Google in those days for me to go search for the spiel later), my very young brain retained every word. I repeated it for my parents later. I made my little brothers memorize it. We incorporated it into our Entertain All Guests at the Kander Home-and-Road-Show routine.

I probably haven't said those words in close to two decades.

Then last week, a coworker handed me a ruler, and said: "Beth, I'm giving you this because you rule!"

I said, "Well, I don't know if I rule, but I can tell you that rulers factor in to why fire engines are red."

And then, like I'd been saying it every day for the last twenty years, without stumbling even once, I told him why fire engines are red. (And then he called me a weirdo and went back to his office.)

How did I pull that out of the recesses of my memory? The human brain is endlessly fascinating. Lately I feel that my memory has been poorer than usual. I will meet six new people at a dinner party and remember the names of only three. I'll forget to check email before I leave the house and have to stop by my office to log on and get the directions I needed that were waiting in my inbox. I'll pack a lunch and leave it on the counter when I exit the building.

Lately, I can't tell you what I had for breakfast the day before, what outfit I was wearing before I put my pajamas on, what the house number is on the apartment directly across the street from me...

...but, as I'm sure you'll be relieved to know... I can tell you quite definitively why fire engines are red.