There are certain lists of things that I always get confused on in my head. Specifically these tend to be lists of seven items (and in one case 8 or 9 depending on how you decide it): The Seven Deadly Sins (wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony), The Seven Dwarves (Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy) Gaiman’s Endless (Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium) and Santa’s reindeer (Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, Blitzen (which is 8) and sometimes Rudolph (makes 9).

So when I’m asked to name any one set of those lists it ends up like this:

“Hey man, what are the seven dwarves, again?” a friend will ask me. Why they ask me – well I used to wonder and then I realized it was because I fuck it up.

“Oh, sit. Uhm. Dopey… Grumpy, Sleepy, Prancer, Dasher Destiny and Sloth? No that’s not right. Fuck! It’s, uhhh, Doc, I forgot Doc before. So Doc, Bashful, Happy, Cupid, Desire, Gluttony and Blitzen? Damn it! No. Grumpy. Wait, that’s eight. There were only seven dwarves, right? So it can’t be… Gluttony wasn’t a dwarf. Uhm. So that leaves Doc, Grumpy, I don’t want to forget Grumpy, Comet, Desire, Envy, Sneezy and… Prancer? Fuck! No, no, no. Wait, all right, let me backtrack. I’ll name the reindeer and those can’t be dwarves! All right! Dancer, Prancer, Bashful, Dream, Lust, Happy, Despair and Rudolph. All right so none of those can… be… dwarves… wait, this is all wrong isn’t it?”

And then my friend laughs at me. But I can’t help it. They’re all very similar lists. And there should be a reindeer named Despair. He was the one who, when they couldn’t see to pull Santa, left to go cut himself and cry in a corner. But regardless, I just can’t get them straight. I’ve tried mnemonics to remember them, even!

Like, if I want to remember the dwarves I would memorize the following sentence:

Bob Decapitated Dan – Growling, He Serial Slashed.

But they never worked for me. Instead I just get confused, every damn time. Dwarves and reindeer and sins and Endless. Oh my.