A Mind is a Terrible thing to Waste

A Mind is a Terrible thing to Waste

Why is it that I can remember every stupid or ugly thing I ever said for the last few decades (at least the one I am aware of) and yet, for the life of me, I cannot find the bunch of bananas that I bought at the store last night?  I have turned this house upside down for about 20 minutes.  I have gone out and checked the car.  I have checked the garage.  I have left no cubby unexplored.  And, to quote the old song:  Yes, we have NO bananas.

I have bought bananas three times in the last three days.  I am doing a little shopping gig where I grocery shop for other people who have no transportation – due to a variety of reasons – and I have been in four different grocery stores in three days.  Three of us have purchased bananas.  Two of us are enjoying them.  But as for me, my bananas are, well, driving me bananas.

I don’t blame the dogs for things that are missing at my house.  It is not that they – well at least one of them – the very one who has her own facebook page – would not drop to the level of eating chimpanzee food.  It’s just that they are – scratch that – SHE is partial to the last three slices of bread in the bag sitting on the edge of the counter.  Other than that, she prefers bologna or peach slices to bananas.

There is no evidence that the bananas made it into the house.  I am okay if they accidentally went out with the trash this morning.  What I am NOT okay with is if I find them in the house in a few weeks or so.  You follow my train of thought on this, right?

A few weeks ago at work there was a brief conversation about forgetting things.  And I wanted to ask the person who was saying that, “I’m sorry, I can’t quite conjure up your name at this moment…”  People know who I am because not unlike the horses in the barn down the street, my name is engraved on the wall above me.  But I forget who I am occasionally too.  Twice now I have left my house keys in the door at night.  I hope I at least locked the screen door.  For moments like that, I truly thank God that I live in the country and not in the city.  I also have a 3-alarm, state-of-the-art security system second to NONE that I know of.   The alarms are quickly tripped-off, move at lightning speed, and emit toxic fumes only sometimes during the middle of the night. 

Today a funny thing happened.  You know those comic strips that are almost identical, posted side-by-side and you have to figure out what is missing in one of the pictures?  I love doing those.  I hate it, though, when I have to do it in my own backyard.  I have nothing to compare it to except what it was the last time I was paying attention.  And as previous paragraphs indicate, midlife is putting some cobwebs where hi-speed cabling used to be in my brain.  So, today, I was cleaning up the raised beds – my Martha Stewart moment right before I re-painted the bureau in the garage with ocean blue chalk paint – and hauling brush to the back of the lot and I thought, “something is really wide-open about my yard today.”  I did not have my glasses on.  I confess that at a distance “this” looks like “that.”  The other day I drove by a herd of baby cows and thought one was lying alone on its side.  Later in the week I realized it was a big log.  Love it.  Anyway, in my yard I saw something lying near my shed.  What the heck?  It was my TIRE SWING.  Branch gone.  Just the tire lying neatly on its side. 

I only have two suspects.  And one of them cleared himself already.  The other one is probably thinking, “how long until she notices it is gone?”  By my calculations, it might be three days:  Thursday, Friday, Saturday.  I hope that it got taken down because the tree limb was bad – and not that he thought I didn’t want it.  It actually reminded me of my late uncle who used to have all us cousins to his house almost every weekend of our childhood and we would blaze around the yard on a motorized mini bike or takes turns on the tire swing.  It was great fun.  And I have two young nephews who come to visit once a year and they would enjoy that tire swing.  In a way, I was handing down a legacy.  Now I just have an old tire on its side and a frayed rope.  Sigh.

Now what was my point of all this, anyway????     

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