Life in the middle ages

copyright 2005 Dale Hansen - no reproduction without permission

I have reached that time in my life where I have begun to contemplate, more and more, the world and the hereafter. I seems as though every time I walk into a room, I stop and think, “Now what in the world am I here after?”

I used to say it was because I was distracted with so many important thoughts. Einstein often was so immersed in weighty and consuming matters that he would forget about the world around him, after all. I was only acting like a forgetful, absent-minded … genius. That’s what I claimed. Eventually I realized that there was no one in the room to hear my protestations except me and I didn’t buy it for a second. In fact, these constant denials only confused me more and made me forget what it was I was looking for in the first place.

For example: at work, there is a little coffee room, two pots, two microwaves, and one refrigerator. I don’t drink their coffee – they don’t clean the pot (EVER!); I don’t nuke my lunch; I only ever use the refrigerator, and then just for a bottle of water.

I have one item in the entire room, a bottle of water. It has my name written on it in indelible marker in 3 inch high letters, sitting at eyelevel in the door of the fridge, and I STILL can’t remember what it was I went in there to get.

My wife has gotten used to me entering a room as I prepare to leave in the morning and come to a complete standstill as though I had jumped the track and was waiting for a tow. As soon as the expression of “What am I forgetting this time?” crosses my face, she starts on the list.

“Car keys? ID badge? Laptop? Wallet? House keys?” and so on and so on. With each item dutifully called out, I slap, grab, brush or otherwise indicate the item in question. Once or twice she has caught me deeply in a middle age moment and called out items I possessed, but actually felt a little pain when indicating their existence too carelessly. She’s good at that.

I have found this extends to my driving as well. Occasionally a random thought will occur to me while driving like “Was that light green?”. The truck has no dents, there are no irate policemen tailing me, and I am picking up no more rude gestures from traffic than anyone else, so I can only conclude that it was green or I stopped and waited.

Once in a while, I will realize that the road I need to turn onto was the one I just passed. Occasionally, I will also realize that for just a moment, I have absolutely no idea where I am. This happens on long trips, when I have no idea if I have passed exit 230 or just come to exit 192.

It’s actually worse when I am at work. I will declare a variable (I’m a programmer, and we programmers are always declaring variables. It’s a thing we do), and then cannot for the life of me remember what it is I called it. For all the good a steady Microsoft naming convention does me, I should just start using character names for Tolkin or Monty Python movies. At least I can guarantee there isn’t another programmer in the world that wouldn’t recognize those! All geek code, for geeks, by geeks. GEEKS UNITE! Or is it GEEKS UNTIE? Whatever.

I thought about getting it checked, and in fact I see a doctor every three months, but I never remember when I get there, and on those occasions when it occurs to me belatedly, well, who cares?

Anyway, the point of all of this is… uhm…. forgotten.

Oh well.

I post again later.

Though you may need to remind me.