Now, Where Was I?

It’s happened. I think I’ve officially hit that age where forgetfulness is setting in. When I turned the Big 4-0 last year, I thought it was just the warranty on the physical parts that had expired, but it turns out my hard drive is going, too. Either that or I have too much stress in my life at the moment. I’ve been having problems with the English language or at least remembering words. I’ll be talking to someone and my mind will completely reboot and I have no clue what I was talking about. Or I’ll be talking to someone and try to remember a person’s name and it’s totally blank.

Not that it’s ever easy for me – especially in times of high stress, people’s names have always been the first thing to go. I liken the phenomenon to an episode of one of my favorite TV shows, Married … With Children. In this particular episode, Bud was tutoring dullard Kelly so she could pass her finals, so she could graduate high school. Unlike one of my other favorite episodes, where Bud was tutoring her in history by teaching her TV show theme songs (Thomas Jefferson => theme to “The Jeffersons”), he was taking this task seriously and she was actually learning the stuff. But they were finding out that as she learned more advanced information, the other info in her brain was dribbling out to the point where when the doorbell rang she had no clue what it was.

Now, my VERY favorite episode (“Hot Off the Grill” Season 4, Episode 1) is the one where Peg accidentally knocks over Al’s grill and loses all the ashes from previous grillings (which is the secret to his famous –if only in his mind- Bundy Burgers) and she sends the kids around the neighborhood to steal ashes from the people’s homes. And the dippy kids come back with the ashes of Marcy’s dead aunt Toonie… Wait, what was my point? Oh, yeah, so in times of stress, people’s names tend to be the first tidbit of info to dribble out of my brain. And although things are super busy at work, and there is still probably some residual stress from Dad’s death and being there for Mom, I don’t feel overly stressed, so I wouldn’t think that’s what’s going on.

But, see..Sunday morning, I woke up about 7:30 (Sophie let me sleep in, I suppose) and watched Vh-1’s weekend Top 20 Countdown while working on my farm. I was playing hooky from Sunday School class, but church started at 10:45, so I had plenty of time. About 9:30, I left my place, went to Walgreens, bought some shampoo and a monster bag of Tootsie Rolls and a bat Halloweenie Beanie from Ty. Then I hit a McD’s for a couple of Sausage Burritos (a big thank you to Haley for THAT addiction) – BTW, they got my order wrong and gave me a Sausage Egg McMuffin, but I ate it anyway – and then I drove to church. I got to the parking lot about 10am, but having plenty of time, I sat in the parking lot in the car for about 15 minutes reading my book. But then nature called, so I decided I could easily go on in, go, and then stake out a prime pew and read until Sunday School was over. Let me repeat that I KNEW church starts at 10:45… I firmly believed this, but when I walked in, I noticed that my Sunday School classroom was empty. Then I realized that I heard Pastor Dave’s voice on the sound system. I saw one of the deacons in the entryway and I asked him, “exactly when does church start?” He told me that it started at 10am. Whoops!

The thing is, this is not the first time this has happened. A couple of months ago, I arrived for Sunday School, and I figured I’d be late (as is my usual modus operandi) but when I plopped down in my seat, I received a look from my mother and she whispered that I was 45 minutes late! Whoops!

But the problem is that for at least 35 of my 41 years, Sunday School started at 9:30 and church started at 10:45. And then they go and change things on me? I’m not a big fan of change, unless it has pictures of presidents on it, but I can usually deal. So is it age, stress, or something else?

Wait.. now what was I talking about? hmmm...