How do I count how many times a function has been called without using any global variables?

Question

I am working on a simple memory GUI game, and I need to define a function that can run twice in a certain way and then run differently the third time. The problem being that I cannot use global variables of any kind to define a list that will count for me. How can I make it so that the function itself defines a list and then counts how many times it has already been called so it can operate accordingly?