Obliviate

Obliviate

The Ilfracombe Incident occurred in 1932 when a rogue Common Welsh Green dragon attacked a group of sunbathers at Ilfracombe in Devon, England. 

The attack was thwarted by a vacationing wizard family who then proceeded to cast the largest group of Memory Charms seen in the twentieth century. Despite their mass charming of the muggles who had witnessed the attack, some escaped from their Memory Charms, including a certain “Dodge Dirk” who maintains to this day, much to the confusion of muggles, that a "dirty great flying lizard" punctured his inflatable rubber beach mattress.

Pressing Unsend

Friends who exchange emails with me know my bad habit of starting to type, going with a stream of consciousness, and pressing Send. Too often, the next morning upon reading what was sent, it is obvious that instead of Send, I should have pressed Draft and then Delete.

Same with conversation, what we say can never be unsaid. We can apologize or try to rephrase, or agonize about what we should have said instead, but it stays said forever. In 1988 Massachusetts elected the Rev. Barbara Harris as the first female bishop in the Anglican Communion, and the church was going through the churchwide approval process before her consecration, including debating (an overly kind word for it) her qualities and qualifications. At a clergy and spouse conference in the midst of that, we had conversation about it and members of the Standing Committee said they’d voted “No” because she’d never gone to seminary. Angered and disgusted, I stood and spoke extremely rashly. People gasped and the bishop immediately recessed the conference. A quarter-hour later when we reconvened, I stood and apologized. But it was said, I had humiliated myself, was filled with regret and thoughts of what I should have said instead -- or simply remained seated and kept my mouth shut. But it had been said, could not be unsaid, will forever drift and float in the ether of OMG, did I really say that?

This surfaces this morning after reading an article about aging that said we become less and less reserved and more and more inclined to just speak our minds. God forbid. With the marvels of modern electronics advancing not just day by day but hour by hour, surely some genius will give us an Unsend button to press. 

Better yet, a Hogwarts app for downloading Harry Potter’s obliviate charm that erases all memory of what happened.

T