MEMORY : IT ALL HURTS

MEMORY

Aging dictates you must write down every single thought to remember it. You must write down where you parked your car, which people and how many came with you when you go to the mall. Put your children’s, grandchildren’s, wife’s birthdays, Dr.’s appointments Etc. in your day timer. Write everything down. I even put my name and phone number in my shorts. Not that it does any good, because I often forget to put on my underwear, where I put any notes or for that matter if I ever wrote them.

To demonstrate: once, after we moved to a new house, I wrote down my new address on the inside of my car window in giant letters with white shoe polish. You would think after all that, I would go to the right home. You would be wrong. I still had a key to my old home, so of course I drove to my old house. I walked straight in, entered the kitchen, and sauntered up to the woman whose back was turned to me, patted her on the butt and asked what was for dinner. Her screaming affected the rotation of the earth. I’m not allowed within five hundred yards of that house to this date.

I find myself forgetting very important things like: I will realize it’s time for me to visit mother nature , so during a commercial I'll get up and head for the restroom. On the way I completely forget where I’m going. It occurs to me “Why waste the trip?” as long as I’m up and in the vicinity I may as well go to the restroom.

I worked the graveyard shift for about five years at one time, and when I started working days again I couldn’t for the life of me figure out who all the strangers living in my house were. I still can’t till about ten in the morning.

It is convenient for me to use the term “honey” in my marriage because I often forget my wife’s real name and I am afraid of saying the wrong one. My son just thinks I’m trying to be geeky cool when I call him dude, I think I heard him called Bobby once, but I can’t be sure.

I sometimes elect to have a stimulating conversation with an intelligent looking person. I try to sound like William F Buckley Jr. in hopes of impressing him or her with my grasp of current affairs. We will be discussing the cultural causes and effects of China’s economic infrastructure using big words like fiduciary and copious when all of a sudden I stop in the middle of a sentence because I am struggling to remember how to say the word dog.

Occasionally I am forced to attend a public function. I’ll start to make a witty comment to someone and suddenly realize I have absolutely no inkling of the topic of discussion, where I was going with the comment, or whom I’m speaking to, at which point I smile, wave to someone across the room and say, “I’ll be right there honey.”

I spend a great deal of time wandering and wondering why I’m in the kitchen. Come to think of it, I sat down to write a grocery list when I started this article.

One of the great things about growing older is that…umm...Crap! I forgot. Oh yeah! I can no longer remember how to speak French.

As you age you collect poltergeists. Poltergeists often open kitchen cabinet doors I am standing under. Ha ha. It’s all in fun and the stitches are usually removed with in a week. They hide things, usually keys, coffee cups or glasses. I know it has to do with the supernatural because things reappear where you looked ten minutes ago. I would bless the place but they stole my bible. I can walk to the restroom with a book in my hand not stopping once, and amazingly lose the book by the time I’m seated. I have connived a way to occasionally out-smart them. I have several of everything. My house looks like an optical store. I have never thrown out a pair of glasses that I’m still able to see out of. I leave decoys all over the house to fool the little jerks. I do the same with keys, that way they have a hard time getting all of them. Single shoes or socks used to vanish every morning only to reappear in the evening. It’s remarkable how few people notice you are wearing two different colored shoes. At my age guys in a suit wearing tennis shoes because they can’t find their dress shoes look like they are homeless and fresh from the Goodwill store. Only young TV personalities with the haircuts that look like their head just blew up, can get away with it

I now buy only one type and color of shoes and all my socks are identical. When I put them on the wrong feet or wear two left shoes and someone notices, I just tell people I have bad restless leg syndrome.

Evidently the poltergeists can mimic my wife. I’ll be having a conversation with what I think is my wife. We’ll be talking about my need for some new work shirts. I’ll say “ Hey Honey! These shirts are half price on-line.” Right about then my alleged wife will say “Great”, and walk into the kitchen. I’ll say loudly “Honey do I look better in green or brick red shirts?” where upon my real wife will come into the room and say, “What in the world are you talking about?” looking at me like I just asked her what kind of frambles do kableeza’s torb when they are young.

One of the more talented poltergeists often masquerades as my youngest son. Like my son, it usually sits at the computer. I'll ask him to feed the dogs and he replies, “Sure dad.” Later, when the dogs are eating my shoes, I ask my son if the dogs have been fed, I get that look again.

We will examine more middle age pitfalls next week. This week I think I might have made an appointment to have TV’s paranormal Ghost Hunter TAPS team come over to my house and investigate. I can’t be sure until I find my day timer. I have to finish my grocery list now.