"The Fine Print" #49 -- If Only I Could Remember . . .

“The Fine Print”, by M.H. Schrader

If Only I Could Remember...

(Published 12 March 1997 in the Neighborhood Journal. Posted in toto 7 October 2002.)

I had a great idea for a column earlier today. Unfortunately, I have no earthly idea what it was, which is, of course, a shame, because I know that it was a good one.

As I’ve told my wife on many occasions, if I am distracted while in the middle of doing something, I tend to forget what it was that I was doing (or why, for that matter). Sometimes it seems that my neural synopses aren’t quite working properly.

For example, while typing the previous paragraph, I remembered to turn off the VCR. I was taping a program (“The X-Files”) earlier this evening, and I just plum forgot to stop the tape when it was over. And “The X-Files” ended a little over an hour and a half ago.

This morning, for example, I had gotten dressed for church, walked out the door, was getting into the car, and remembered that I was not wearing a belt. Some men can go without a belt; I however, due to a lack of a posterior, cannot. Without a belt, my pants would quickly fall down around my ankles.

Imagine my embarrassment, then, if I had not remembered in the nick of time that I was not wearing a belt. I can picture the congregation all abuzz when my pants fell down around my ankles in church. “We want you to be exposed to Jesus, Mike, but that’s not quite the kind of exposure we were thinking of.”

I like to compare my brain to my wife’s hair dryer. It has an open circuit in it, so sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. My brain, then, must have an open circuit somewhere. When it’s on it’s on; when it’s not, well forget about it. I have.

Having a brain with an open circuit is really quite frustrating at times. Earlier this evening, for example, I excused myself from the dinner table and went into the living room. By the time I walked the ten feet into the living room, I had completely forgotten why I was going into the living room in the first place.

Of course, my ever patient wife tried to help me jog my memory. Was I going to set the VCR to record “The X-Files”? Nope, that wasn’t it. I told her that whatever reason I had for going into the living room had something to do with the baby. A burping rag? Nope. A rattle? Nope.

She decided to have a little fun at my expense. Were you going to do the dishes and got lost on the way to the kitchen? Nope. Were you going to wax the floor? Hardly. Were you actually heading to the bathroom (which would require me to go through the living room from the dining room to get to) to clean the sink and tub? Yeah, right.

As I held my head in exasperation and wandered about the house, daughter Elizabeth wanted to know why I was crying. I’m not crying, kiddo, I’m just trying to remember, but even if I was crying, I probably wouldn’t know why. Then, like a snap of the fingers, I remembered why I wanted to go to the living room--to put an afghan (a type of quilt, as opposed to an Afghan, a person from Afghanistan) away. Which had absolutely nothing to do with the baby, although I really believed before I remembered that whatever purpose I had did.

If this were an isolated incident, I’d say I’d be alarmed. After all, I’m only thirty-something, and that’s a little too young to be developing memory disorders. But, it’s just another part of a lifelong pattern of forgetfulness.

When I graduated from elementary school, I was supposed to bring a picture of myself as a baby to hang on the gymnasium wall for the ceremony and party; you know, one of those ooh and aah kind of things where you try and guess whose baby picture is whose. Being the fifth of five children, there are about two pictures of me as a baby or toddler. I figure that my parents were pretty tired of taking baby pictures by the time I came around, that after four other kids, the novelty had worn off. I brought one of those two pictures to hang on the wall.

I remembered it about 13 years later, and actually went by the school on the outside chance that they might still have it. They told me they might, they would have to check in storage, and that I should check back with them. That was 4 years ago, and as I typed this paragraph, I remembered that I had forgotten to check in with them to see if they had found my (rare, in my opinion at least), photograph. Oops!

What frustrates my wife the most is when I go to the store and forget why I went. She’ll send me out for a gallon of milk, and I’ll come back with $100 worth of groceries but no milk. Of course, this is one reason that she insists that I make a grocery list. But, the list is only good if you remember to bring it, and, you guessed it, I forget that, too.

For me, though, I get the most frustrated when I forget an action in the middle of it. I’ll make a whole pot of coffee, for example, and then forget to pour myself a cup. I’ll boil water to make a cup of tea, and forget that I was boiling water. It takes the smell of a tea kettle burning for me to remember that, yes indeedy, I was boiling water, and, yes indeedy, I was boiling that water to make a cup of tea. You would think that the empty tea cup with the tea bag would give me a clue, but it just doesn’t seem to work that way.

With the exception of my lost baby picture, my forgetfulness hasn’t really cost me much. But, I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve gotten lucky. On more than one occasion I’ve left the car unlocked, and it’s never been stolen; I’ve left the car windows down, and it’s never rained hard. Nothing but good ole dumb luck.

You know, though, I still can’t remember that idea for a good column. Maybe in 13 years, perhaps.

Back to “The Fine Print” Index