Over dinner this evening, Kara and I talked about when we adopted our two current feline companion animals, Winifred and Puck. I knew by heart the date that I brought Freddie home—October 1 is marked on our calendar as “Freddie-versary”—and that, based on a vet’s estimate of her age at the time of adoption, she was probably born on or near April 1.

However, we both struggled to remember exactly when we brought home our Mister Puck, or why I was so certain that his birthday fell sometime around election day. So I did what any good anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive would do: I went to my office, pulled my packet of tax receipts from fiscal year 2005, went through my old credit card statements, and found the transaction date for the day I paid his adoption fee.

March 6 is now known in our household as “Puck-iversary,” and I feel vindicated for keeping over a decade’s worth of financial records.