I seem to be having trouble with my short-term memory. From one moment to the next I can’t recall what I was saying, what I’m doing, why I’m here and – in extreme instances – who I am. Also, I seem to having trouble with my short-term memory.
Time was I could stuff random facts into my brain and fetch them back as easily as picking stones off the ground. Now when I want to retrieve some tidbit of information – my social security number, one of my many telephone numbers, my children’s names – I have to work with a pick and a shovel to dig it out of my skull. I’ve gone from a steel-trap mind to the Amazing Teflon Brain. Nothing sticks anymore.
If you want evidence, look no farther than the cupboards, pantry and storage shed at my house. I have thousands of dollars worth of things that I’m almost out of.
For example, I have a trimmer I use to beat the edges of my lawn into submission. Periodically, I have to replace the spool of thick plastic trimming line. Every time I go to the hardware store I ask myself, “Do I need trimmer line?”
My brain always responds promptly with, “I don’t know.”
To be safe, I buy a spool of line, take it home, and then put it in the shed with the spool I bought the day before. And the week before. And several months before. If this stuff ever goes out of production, I could sell my spools on eBay and retire in comfort to my own personal tropical island. Cuba might even be in my price range.
And yet I know that next time I go to the hardware store the Amazing Teflon Brain will betray me again and I will come home with another spool.
Much the same phenomena happens with razor blades. For months I’d been inadvertently stocking up on blades for my favorite razor. Suddenly all of the stores were out of the blades. I was very upset because the blade I had been using was growing dull. It no longer cut so much as it dragged along my face pulling the hairs out individually. After I shaved my face looked like it had been run through a rosebush. All I needed was a new blade.
I couldn’t find one, so I switched to a new and inferior brand of razor for a couple of weeks.
When I finally found the blades for my preferred razor, I bought two packages and took them home and put them in the drawer with all of the blades I had before the crisis.
Why couldn’t I have remembered I had blades? It’s as if my brain is getting back at me; punishing me for the years I’ve spent forcing it to watch Fox television.
My personal favorite memory lapse is when I find myself in the middle of a sentence and I can’t quite get the right word. I might be in a work meeting saying something like, “It’s clear that this situation is … um … um ….” Inside I’m frantically clawing through my remaining brain cells like a thief ransacking a house. Intolerable? Acceptable? Nougat-coated? None of the adjectives quite fit. For that matter, do I even want an adjective? I know they’re an important part of speech, but I honestly don’t recall what makes them different from nouns or gerunds or cow pies.
On the outside, I’m winding down like a music box at the limit of its spring. People in the room are staring at me with vague expressions of concern. One or two join in the game by offering words of their own.
“Unusual?”
“Exciting?”
“Disposable?”
At this point I have completely forgotten the topic of the conversation, so I go with one of the suggestions – usually the suggestion from the youngest person present on the premise that they still have a functional memory and therefore the best chance of being right.
Getting other people to finish my sentences is only one adaptive strategy. There are others.
I keep lists of things I need to do. My daily task plans might include things like:
Finish financial report
Check into pricing for equipment
Verify cost on supplies
Clean glasses
No kidding. Without thinking I actually wrote “Clean glasses” on my list one day. My glasses sit on the front of my face, between me and the world. When they’re dirty, my world is hidden behind a film of spots. Do I really need to write “Clean glasses” on my list? What’s next “Take breath?” or “Restroom break” or “Stay awake”?
Even so, it took me to the end of the day to clean my glasses and that only happened when I saw it on my list.
Of course the list only works if I take time to write understandable notes. If my handwriting is off I might find myself contemplating a reminder which reads: Call to check on panties.
Panties? Did I mean pastries? Did I want pastries for something? Maybe I meant paints. If only I could remember.
The worst reminders are those which are perfectly legible and completely irrelevant. Call Joe. Why? Is he going to tell me something useful? If I call, will he know what I wanted?
The Amazing Teflon Brain can be very frustrating sometimes. Especially because I think it actually does remember all of this stuff. If it actually doesn’t work, why can it spit back the names of all seven dwarfs, all five Marx brothers, and the complete lyrics of The Ballad of Jed Clampett. (“Come and listen to a story ’bout a man named Jed. Poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed.) My brain is sitting up there laughing at me; mentally pulling the rug out from under me. I wouldn’t mind so much if it let me in on the joke.
Now, what was I talking about?
