Missing In Action

Maybe it's the time of year. Perhaps it has to do with something meteorological - air pressure or a warm wind from the Alps. It could be age, old age setting in. Or I'm quite possibly just losing my mind.

Let me explain: I'm quite stressed at the minute. I have a lot of exams to correct. My mind is full of small, fiddly details like the names of students I have to talk to or get grades from, or colleagues I have to ask about something, or things I have to get or do at home. Dozens of things - dozens and dozens of random bits of information. As a result, I'm increasingly finding myself somewhere without a clue what I'm doing there. For example, in front of an open fridge, staring at a packet of butter and an unopened bag of tortellini.
"Why am I looking in the fridge?" I wonder. "Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? No?"
And I close the fridge again and return to my work-room. Only to remember about half an hour later that I had wanted to take a frozen chicken out of the fridge to defrost. Minutes later, I'm in front of the fridge again with a bottle of Coke in my hand, wondering why I came downstairs to get a soda when I don't even like the stuff.

The next day we have toast for dinner.

Recently, I found myself in the photocopy room at work, blankly staring at a colleague.
"I came in here for something," she said. "I wonder what?"
"I'm having the same problem," I said.
We stared helplessly at one another till the gentle whirring of the machines reminded us - we'd come to photocopy. That's why we were standing in the photocopier room with sheets of paper in our hands.
"Sometimes I think I'm losing it," said my colleague. She looked at me blankly again. "How many copies am I making, I wonder?"
I couldn't help her. I was too busy staring at the photocopier console wondering what day it was.

Worst of all is the fact that my husband is not much better. I can't rely on his razor-sharp mind to keep me on track because when it comes to remembering everyday details, his mind is as sharp as a blunt butter-knife. He's as bad as I am - or worse. Yesterday morning when the alarm rang, I told him I was going to pop out to the baker because we had no bread for breakfast.
"Really?" he said. "I thought we had some bread left."
"No," I said, "We had that last night. What do you want from the baker?"
"Mmmm, I'd like - "
And there was silence. Readers, he'd fallen back asleep ... in the middle of the sentence!

We're in our mid-thirties. It's only going to get worse. I'll have to start carrying around a little notebook so I can write my goal on it before I leave a room: Get hammer from toolbox to fix the nail that's sticking out on my desk. If I don't do this, I'll return with a handful of screws and a spirit level. I might even have to step over my sleeping husband on the way. I now have a startling vision of us Gingerbreads as senior citizens: me walking in circles in the kitchen, him falling asleep between verb and object.

Please enjoy me while I'm still lucid, readers.