Johns Hopkins keeps sending me email pamphlets on memory loss. I don’t remember asking them for the Dementia Dictionary, which in itself might indicate a problem. Today’s headline read, “You might not remember this tomorrow” which begs the question, “Why should I read it today?”
It’s not just about going to the store to buy butter and coming home with socks. That could happen to anyone. It’s more about not caring. People can scoff all they want when I go to the office supply store with a note pinned to my shirt. Does anybody truly remember the right toner cartridge for their printer?
The thing is that if I’m truly losing it, I’m not going to know it. I don’t look at everyone at Wal-Mart and wonder, “Could that be my dear Aunt Tessie who passed away in ’92?” Instead, I’ll be completely oblivious to my priest who’s been trying to hail me since linens. I’ll be too busy trying to remember if my bed is a full, which we used to call double, or a Queen, which we used to call Queen. The collar should have been a dead giveaway … for the priest, not the sheets.
So I don’t panic over little memory lapses. One only had to look at GW Bush’s eyes during speeches to know that forgetting what you were saying mid-sentence is … a fool won’t be fooled again.
I have three documents open right now, false starts on blog posts, where I’ve forgotten where I was going by the second paragraph. To be honest, I can’t remember where I was going with this one. Pressing on.
So don’t worry when your friends give you pitying looks because you’ve forgotten how to count to 15 in Cribbage. Don’t let Johns Hopkins’ dire warnings send you scurrying for the Ginko Biloba. It’s best to leave the judging of your mental condition to family and friends, who want to keep you heavily medicated so they don’t have to listen to your story of the donkey and the penguin yet again. (I assure you, it’s a hoot!)
I figure that I’ll just keep on writing and doing what I love until they have to pin my name to my shirt. Hello, I’m Hewlitt Packard 35A. Wait, is that my name or my bra size?
Once again you have passed the lol test.
Well done, whats-her-name, well done.
Nice one Karla, nice one…
I’m busily speculating what Dubya is thinking in that picture….
Either that, or having a stroke.
Karla, you made me snicker once again. I had a senior moment at work just this past week…everyone laughed…I’m glad I could amuse them, while I waited patiently for the redness to disappear from my cheeks…
Nicely done!
Here’s a clue, Karla: Hewlett Packard doesn’t make bras. Victoria’s Secret doesn’t carry printer cartridges.
I should shut up. As William can tell you, my memory is such that there are times I can’t remember names I should know immediately. No, William, I’m not talking about Jane Austen. I haven’t read anything of hers since my college literature class, so that’s not so surprising. Forgetting my own name, however, is problematic.
Hee hee!
Pressing on . . .
Love that. I forget stuff all the time, but it turns out there are always other things that I remember that take the time I have to spend until that first thing I forgot re-emerges.
And I don’t let it bother me.
Pressing on.
It scares me that I understood what you just said.