I'm not sure if this is just a guy thing, but it's certainly a "me" thing: I can hold diametrically opposed ideas in my head without any trouble.

For example, I can be told on one day that I have to fly out of town next Tuesday, and the next day can be told that I'm supposed to take my kid to some school function next Tuesday, and nine times out of ten, I'll be perfectly good with it until I'm actually out of town and suddenly remembering that I signed up to take my kid somewhere.

My brain usually doesn't connect the dots when it comes to ideas; logical conclusions aren't automatically reached based solely upon the admission of new ideas.

Thoughts, without some specific substrate upon which to roost or some other thought to cling to, will simply float in my mind as a random fact, if it remains at all. Most random facts like this get flushed into the sea of forgetfulness at some point or another. They must have some other thought or fact to stick to in order to remain.

For example, this last Sunday, we were heading out the door for church. I pulled the car out of the garage, and my wife came out the front door with our son.

My wife announced this: "I don't have my keys."

This is an isolated fact, and stirred no particular response within me. Thus, I said nothing, and once she and my son were buckled in, I began to pull out of the driveway.

What my wife was hoping for was for me to connect the dots, and realize that since she didn't have keys, she couldn't lock the door, and therefore I need to lock the door.

Why didn't she just say "You need to lock the door." instead? Maybe that's a girl thing. I don't know.

I managed to pull a fast save by stopping the car and running into the house to get the camera, then noticing that the door wasn't locked, and finally realizing why she told me she didn't have the keys.