Memory short-circuited
by Julie Carter
I laid down the car keys not so long ago and they are still
right there where I put them. I will verify that just as soon as I remember
where that was.
That scenario seems to run in stages with me, I'll go days
where I can't find anything that I'm sure I put somewhere. I also walk off and
leave quite a few things that I need when I get where I'm going.
Honesty will have you the reader nodding in agreement at
this point in the story. You know it’s happened more than once to you.
Making a living at an assortment of crafts requires an array
of methods for keeping track of ideas, plans, equipment, paper work and a
schedule. It is a recipe for a mental challenge at best. Add that to frequent
bouts of long and odd hours, some chaos in meeting deadlines and piles and
piles of paper and my list-making personality goes into overdrive.
If I could just find that list, or remember which list it is
that, I'm working on. A stack of tablets for notes can be
a mixed bag of problems. The search for whatever it is I can't find often
reveals more than the item I'm looking for.
I tore the car apart and found everything except the keys:
an old (very old) French fry, an earring I thought was long gone, 14 pens, a
grocery list, a sock, three gloves (none that match), a short piece of rope, a
broken umbrella, two rain ponchos, two MREs (military Ready to Eat meals), a
dead flashlight, a roll of duct tape, pliers and enough sunflower seeds to feed
a family of squirrels for the winter, but no keys.
While I'm sure the contents of the car search and my manner
of chaotic stress-induced forgetfulness could be psychoanalyzed, ad nauseum, I
prefer to write it off as living in a fast-spinning world that doesn't allow
for immaculate cleaning or organized anything.
As I vaguely recall, I am truly happier when things are a
little tidier and in their place where I can find them. But like I said, that
is a distant memory.
Every ranch pickup I have ever known has a personality built
around the contents one would find in doing such a search as I just did. I
found it interesting my car wasn’t much better.
Gloves, sometimes one of each, right and left, are stuffed
under the seat or on the dashboard. Other treasures would be a pair of broken
sunglasses, a piece of inner tube, a flattened roll of toilet paper too dirty
to use, an empty binocular case and a piece of paper with a phone number on it,
but no name.
There is always mail and usually an old envelope from
someone you had already chewed out because you "never got it." It's not
unusual for the papers to be important things like the state land lease or the
overdraft notice from the bank.
Usually you can find a gun or two and lots of ammunition
lying around, but rarely the right ammo for those same guns. There are windmill
leathers, preg testing gloves, enough loose change to put a kid through college
and a bottle of 10-40 oil.
Keeping the psychoanalysis out of it, I prefer to think that
I am prepared for almost anything.
Stop and smell the roses you say? That was exactly what I
was doing when I laid down my keys.
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