Memory Loss. Seriously. It's happening to me.

Tonight was a doozy.

After work I decided to try a taqueria in my new town, less than a five-minute drive away. Got a couple of tacos and some street corn and waited in my car. (This place works like a food truck, but in a permanent location the size of a single wide trailer).

Got called to the window to get my food and was surprised to see my corn in a cup. There was no lid so I took care to situate it in my cup holder and went home. That’s when I realized it - no tacos.

I sat there for a minute debating which would be more embarrassing- being the guy who came back for his forgotten food or the guy who paid for tacos and abandoned them. Hunger won out and back down the hill I went.

The folks in the trailer remembered me but didn’t remember me leaving anything behind. Then another guy who was still waiting for his dinner solved the mystery.

“Your food is in the street over there. Somebody knocked on your window as you were pulling out to tell you it was still on the roof. I don’t think anyone has run it over yet if you still want it.”

Sheepishly I muttered something like “I’m not that desperate,” and pulled back out. I could see the customer retelling the story to the counter guy, who went from a puzzled look to a grin as wide as the trailer.

But as I got next to the tied plastic bag with my tacos, I noticed it was indeed intact. And I kinda was that desperate. So I pulled to a stop in the middle of a four-lane US highway, opened the door and scooped up my orphaned dinner.

I had to refill the tortillas myself but everything was good. Maybe in six months or so I can show my face there again.

 

Opening of chapter 1, or a scene in the movie.

 

I think it was a Johnny Carson line. He had on a 100-year-old guy and asked him if he did anything special to contribute to his longevity. He said, "I get a little Olive Oil every day." And Carson said, "If that's what does it, Popeye should live forever."

 

I can relate to an extent. I'm older (not quite 60). I recall vividly several months ago when I saw the letters s-p-a-r-s-e in a newspaper article ... and could not figure out what the word was. It shook me up.
More recently, I couldn't recall the word "crutch." I could mentally picture it but couldn't retrieve the word to say it.
I haven't reached the stage of forgetting where my keys are or throwing away the candy and keeping the wrapper, but I'm having constant incidents of telling myself, "Don't forget this!" -- say a sequence of events in a sports event I'm watching - and soon enough, I'll forget that I even tried to remember it.
On the other hand ... I'll never forget the first time my daughter said - other than when, say, mimicking her mom - "I love you."

 

My dad always used to tell me that he had forgotten more in his life than I’ll ever learn. Only in the last five years or so have I started understanding what he meant.

I honestly wonder how much of this is serious and how much is normal getting older and being stressed out.

My daughter and I went on a weekend campout and I got 2 miles away from the house before I realized we forgot our food, which was in a cooler I purposely put right next to the door so I wouldn’t forget.

I don’t make a single trip to the grocery store without forgetting to buy at least one thing, even if I have a list. Or, my wife will ask me to stop for something on my way home, and I get to the store having completely forgotten what she’d asked me to get.

My phone is full of notes and appointments that I need to remember but can’t.

Those instances are distinctly different than what I experienced on medication. For example, I couldn’t remember my old dogs’ names, including the ones we put down only two or three years earlier. My wife would ask me about “that time when …” and I’d have absolutely no recollection of it and tell her she must’ve been thinking of her first husband, even though it was definitely me. I couldn’t remember the years my nieces and nephews were born. Etc.

 

Has your sleep schedule changed with the new job?

 

Poured coffee in the filter today. Turned the machine on. Didn't hear anything.

Forgot to put the water in.

 

I spent 20 seconds last night looking for the remote that was in my hand.

 

So two elephants are talking and one says, "How do I do it? Mnemonics!"


I first heard that joke 35 years ago.

 

I go Wordle, Spelling Bee, then Connections in the morning. Need it to get my brain going. I should do the Grid more often but I have to work at some point ...

 

"Where is my phone? Where is my phone? WHERE IS MY FUCKING PHONE?!"

It's always underneath a notebook or something else I'm carrying.

 

“Keys, wallet, phone” at least 5 times before I walk out.