I don’t remember. Yet, like a crazy person, I continue to promise myself that I will remember. And I believe myself!
I must have an honest face.
For example, I might say to myself in a reasonable tone, “Carolyn, there’s no need to make a note of when you give the cats their flea treatment. Yes, you do have at your disposal a perfectly good spot right on the package expressly for the purpose of making a note so you don’t coat your cats with flea goop so often that they wind up looking like Jersey Boys. But why? You will remember today as the day of their treatment. Why it’s the Friday before the Wednesday you go to your six month check up with the dentist!”
And so, I bypass the logical step of making a note. I tell myself I’ll remember the extraordinary moment when I crack open the ampule and let the stuff ooze onto their little kitty napes.
In that moment, I truly believe I will remember. But I never remember. At the time of their next treatment, the cats are either flea-bitten or oily.
I guess I forget that I reminded myself that I quit remembering some years back.
Thank goodness it’s not the terrifying kind of memory loss, the kind where you can’t remember that you have a car. No, happily, I know I have a car. Pretty sure. Let me just go check….yep! Car!
Whew.
It’s that other kind of forgetfulness. The stupid avoidable kind.
Here’s how it came to my attention this time: Long ago I read a tip for spreading out the expense and stress of Christmas shopping – when people’s birthdays come around, buy them their birthday present AND a Christmas present!
Deliver the birthday stuff and tuck the Christmas stuff safely away until December. Then, voila! All shopping is done except for those few people who might have December birthdays!
Isn’t that just the best system?!
It is! Except for this one thing: I don’t know where I stashed that present, that really cool perfect gift I bought for my BFF back in March, on the occasion of her birth. The one I was so proud of and so sure she would love.
WHERE IS IT??!!!
And so, yet again, my Christmas preparations consist of an Easter Egg Hunt!
You would think a rational person such as I would secure her collection of gifts in a central, secure location, a logical place, a guest room closet, for example. Nope.
So I checked all the shelves in all the closets looking for my friend’s gift. Under all the beds.
A surge of hope only to be dashed again when a miss-matched partial case of Two Buck Chuck turns up. Nothing but sad, undrinkable wine.
And it doesn’t help to have a couple of greasy kitties dogging you from room to room with their “you never learn, do you?” eyes.
My friend has that quirky cool sense of style. When I see something I know she’ll like I buy it right then and set it aside. It makes me feel good to be so well-prepared, in advance. Efficient. Thoughtful.
Stress and expense dispersed....Throughout the house. In safe places. Where only Santa and the Easter Bunny can find them.
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