Short Term Memory Deficit

When I was three years old I was SOOOOOOOOO excited!  It was Christmas morning.  I remember that it was still dark outside.  My brother, sister, and I, pajama clad, were all moving rapidly into the front room with our parents close behind.

I do NOT remember one present that I got.  OK...well I may just remember ONE present.  It was the one that I had begged and pleaded with my parents to tell Santa.  I wanted a dump truck.  Not just ANY old dump truck.  No, the one I wanted had to be pretty big...with a bucket that really went up and down.  It was to be used for earth moving in my sand pile...AND to move my dolls back and forth to different parts of the sand pile.

That is one of my earliest memories.  It has not changed in the last fifty-six years.  It's almost like the anchor to keep the rest of my young memories in place and stable.

Speaking of being fifty-nine, I now live with short term memory deficit.  I thought it was because of my medical conditions, and the medicines that I take.  Turns out, it just might have to do a teeny tiny bit with the fact that I'm not really twenty-nine anymore.

I like to look at things in life from a positive frame of reference.  Even forgetting where you put your cell phone in your 2,000 square foot house from hour to hour isn't that bad, right?  Below are some items that just might indicate your short term memory is flaming out like a small meteor hitting earth's atmosphere.

1.  You have two children.  Just two.  You can no longer remember which child went with you to the store a day ago...or maybe which child was with you at a friend's funeral. (The funeral probably is more important to remember than the grocery store, right)?

2.  You only have those two children, and you remember that one of them LIKES to eat at Olive Garden, and one does not, but you can't remember which is which.

3.  Your husband does NOT like to eat at Olive Garden, LOVES to eat at Carabbas, and you get confused and take him to the Olive Garden for his birthday.

4.  Your Mother's 93rd birthday is on February 15, but you give her a card and present on the 13th?

5.  You are telling a friend a great story...you build up to the point..and suddenly...the point is now square, or round, because you can't remember what the whole point was??

6.  You tell your children that you're really hungry and think you'll get a bowl of cereal, and they remind you that they just fixed you a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, an hour ago?

7.  You take a nap in the evening, and wake up panicking because you think it's past time to get up to go to an important appointment, and you overslept?

8.  You are asked to greet the ladies at a church women's group and take roll.  You start on the right side of the room, moving right to left.  You finish in about ten minutes after chatting briefly with the ladies as you go.  You finish on the left look to the right and think, "Oh, I didn't meet that lady yet."  So you go up to her, introduce yourself, then you ask what her name is so that you can record her on the roll.  She points at the beginning of the roll and says, "Oh, yes.  Right here, see?  I'm the first one that you met.  See, that's my name there by the number one."

My husband sometimes thought that I was trying to get away with things by claiming that my short term memory deficit was causing the problem.  I don't know why he would say that.  I mean, after all, it is possible to forget to put gas in the car, even though the empty gas light is blinking, and the audible alarm is signaling every 2 minutes, right?  Of course it is.  Just my short-term memory deficit again.

It also does not work well to claim that you forgot NOT to sing and dance to the radio when you pick up your middle school child and they remind you for the TENTH time not to dance and sing where the other students might just see you!  It's also hard to sell that you forgot that you shouldn't be dancing and singing in Old Navy where ANYBODY might see you...to your teenage child.

Just so you know, I DO remember the important things, like my social security number, my birthdate, and my name...well most of the time,  ok some of the time?  Ok, ok...once in awhile?  I mean come on, who is keeping track anyway?