For the past 15 or so years, I have started each and every week thinking about what I need to write about for the column I have to produce within the next seven days. I get ideas about something or another ranging from the absurd to the serious. If you have read any of my stuff over the years, you know what I mean.
I tend to jot these ideas down on whatever I find handy at the time. I keep a notepad by my bed, but then can’t find a pencil at 3 in the morning, so I go back to sleep thinking I’ll be able to remember something great only to find out the next morning, I don’t have any idea what it was. I keep a notepad and pen in my car. I find that some of my best ideas come to me while I’m sitting in the carwash. However, I generally tear the little page out that has this great story idea, and then I can’t remember where I put it. Even worse is when I do find it; I have no earthly idea what it means. For example I’m looking at one this morning that says”Send in the clones (clowns)”and ‘nose hair’.
What on God’s green earth do you think I was trying to explain with that one’ I haven’t the foggiest. Anyway, just as I was about to start trying to knock out something witty and amusing, some unknown friend sent this to me by e-mail. I’d like to thank him or her, but can’t remember who it was’. I suppose that’s why the article is so appropriate.
Dear friends,
Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D. – Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.
This is how it manifests:
I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing. As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mailbox earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table
and notice that the can is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.
But then I think, since I’m going to be near the mailbox when I take
out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.
I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one
check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.
I’m going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke
aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over. I realize the
Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator
to keep it cold.
As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye–they need to be watered.
I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to
water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with
water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won’t remember that it’s on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers.
I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the
floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.
Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.
At the end of the day: the driveway is flooded
the car isn’t washed, the bills aren’t paid, there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, there is still only one check in my check book, I can’t find the remote, I can’t find my glasses,
and I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.
I know I was busy all day long, and I’m really tired.
I realize this is a serious problem, and I’ll try to get some help for it, but first I’ll check my e-mail.
Do me a favor, will you’Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don’t remember who I have sent it to.
Don’t laugh — if this isn’t you yet, your day is coming!