I did warn my doctors that I was too stupid to be an amputee. They didn't believe me.

As one of my arguments against amputation -- and I was serious, though this was a minor argument compared to the whole thing about, I don't know, wanting to keep my right leg -- I did tell them that I was quite sure I was the very sort of person most likely to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and then forget that I was missing a leg and fall and break my neck.

For the record, nothing approaching that has happened even once.  Yet.

However, if you are one of the many devoted readers of this blog who devour not just my every word but every comment that passes between my brilliant visitors and myself, then you have already heard the other little story I'm about to tell you.  It's short, but it deserves to be told in a more obvious place.

The fact is, yesterday I spent a good five minutes walking around my approximately 13' x 14' studio wondering where I'd left my artificial leg and why I couldn't find it.

My true love deeply regrets that, not being around for my desperate search, he was denied the opportunity to "help" me.

"Oh, I dunno, honey," he pretended to posit in response to the exasperated queries he is sad I never asked him, "could you have left it downstairs?"

"No?  Maybe it's still in the car!"

"Or -- I know!  Did you look in your other pair of pants?"

Middle age is not for the proud.

And if you don't know what this tale has to do with middle age, well, either you haven't hit it yet, or bully for you and your superior gene pool.

Comments

[alphabitch]

"did you leave it in your other pants!"

That's the funniest thing I've read in a long time. As someone who has spent way too much time looking for, say, a pair of glasses only to find that I have one pair perched on my head and another on a beaded chain around my neck, I can totally see myself doing this.

[leslee]

"did you look in your other pants"

That's hilarious. It's amazing, though, how some days I'm so sharp and other days I... try to cover well.

[Sara]

Yes, isn't he just the most helpful person? hahahahahaha If I had laughed as hard last week as he made me laugh Sunday, I would have been vomiting and peeing at the same time -- another fabulous experience best relished in middle age.

Alphabitch, the glasses thing is what I thought of immediately, too. It's like, oh no, I've progressed. 'Cause I often find myself looking for my glasses through my glasses. And sunglasses. (sigh)

Leslee, I'm impressed if you can fake it. I cannot. I get way too het up over it all, both flustered and annoyed -- and frankly a little frightened. (again sigh)

My true love says, "Just think what you'll be like in twenty years."

I tell him I can guess what I'll be like, and that the one consolation is that I probably won't remember what I was like now.

[elizabeth]

See, I am all logical and think, "If she is considering downstairs in the car or stuff like that then she must be VERY good at hopping; like olympic class balance." Linda says my special power is to lose things beyond finding in 15 seconds, usually pens. Everything she asks for was "right here." Which is probably why I am never allowed near 'important documents' and such.

[Sara]

Heh -- I am very good at hopping, but of course the operative word here was "walking."

I try not to hop around my house as we live upstairs from other people in a late Victorian or early Edwardian-era house with plaster walls and ceilings, and I weigh 200 lbs. I can hop long distances, though.

I look ridiculous doing it, only partly because of my not exactly aerodynamic body shape and the way it reacts visibly to flight and impact. I stick my stump out in front of me, probably some vestigial impulse derived from bending what used to be my knee to play hopscotch as a child. Then I sort of propeller my hands around as though there is an invisible jumprope. It is insane looking, but as long as there are no hidden puddles of oil or anything, it does get me from one side of a room to another quite quickly.

This behavior tends to make medical professionals very, very nervous.

[Kay Olson]

The Stupid. It's out there waiting. I like to think that no matter how brilliant a person might be, sometimes The Stupid just reaches up and grabs you.

With it stalking you, it can't really be your fault, right?

[laurie]

I am in a book club with about a dozen women, all but one of whom are over 40. I had mentioned early in our meeting last Sunday that I have been worrying about the toll that long-term chemotherapy is having on my cognitive functions. Later in the meeting, after just about everyone had forgotten or stumbled on book titles, days of the week, the names of their children...I thanked them for reassuring me that chemo was not eroding my cognitive functions (at least not chemo alone), we were all just getting old.
Sara, I do the kind of thing that you describe almost every day.
"Did you leave it in your other pants" indeed.

[Amorette]

Well, there are always these:

http://www.amazon.com/Now-Find-Wireless-Electronic-Locater/dp/B00029XBJQ/ref=tag_tdp_sv_edpp_pop_t

[bleeding espresso]

I've done the glasses thing while wearing them as well. Best done when you're alone so you have the choice as to whether to share the story.

Glad you found your leg :)

[leslie]

I too have done the glasses thing more times than I care to tell - and I'm blind enough that I ALWAYS wear them. Middle age is not for the faint of heart. I decided to take gingko to help my memory but I can never remember to take it! Your true love sounds like the kind of helpful guy I'm married to. Bleeding espresso's got it right - gotta do this stuff alone.

[patry francis]

If laughter is healing (which I believe it is) you just provided me with my best medicin of the day. I'm even worse off--middle aged and addled by pain meds.

[Sara]

So, I tried to answer the unanswered comments here once before, but, fittingly, before I had a chance to finish, I accidentally closed the window where I was working on them. Let's try that again, shall we?

Kay: First of all, I am SO SO HAPPY that you got your computer fixed. You were missed.

Secondly, yes! It's not my fault! Thank you! Sadly, though, I think The Stupid and Gravity are in a gang together, that they not only stalk me as a pair, but that they take turns taunting me individually and as a team for their own and each other's amusement. Who's the leader of this gang? Probably Hubris.

Laurie: I never did chemo, but I do have multiple head injuries and then there were all those certain recreational experiences in my youth that I no longer remember very well but that I hear were real fun. But you know what? Everyone of our generation, even people who have not been through chemo, bumped their heads, played with things they advise their own children not to -- if in fact there is anyone left in our generation who has truly never done any of those things -- has the same sad story to tell brain-wise, or attentiveness-wise, or whatever this is. So maybe we should just make a T-shirt that says "Did you leave it in your other pants?" in a friendly, concerned font but with no graphics or explanatory text. It could be a uniting slogan for us.

Or it could be confusing and threatening. Hm. Maybe I should think this through a little more.

Amorette: Great idea! I have to tell you, though, that my initial thought when I saw what you were recommending was imagining myself with one of these stuck to the plastic socket that goes over my stump all the way up to my ass. I imagined myself flicking the "find" switch, only to have my ass start beeping, and then me turning around and around in circles like a cat chasing her tail. No telling how long that could have gone on.

Michelle (aka "sognatrice" or "bleeding espresso" for the uninitiated): Yes, I'm very glad I found it, too. Heh. My true love is truly desolate, though, that I figured it out before I could ask him. Truly. He keeps coming up with new helpful suggestions he could have offered, if only. His latest? "Well, if you'd just leave it in the same place every time, you wouldn't have this problem."

So helpful.

Leslie: Ha! You know I never did see any improvement when I took gingko, but now you have me questioning the consistency of my own practice. Sometimes I just fantasize about being able to have a procedure where we can get our brains cleaned, not like the computer, not wiped free of all information, but like drapes, with all the crud vacuumed out of the folds. I fantasize about how light and bright we would feel afterward. Too bad there's no such procedure.

Patry: I agree. It is very important to keep up our silliness levels. Also, I am very glad to see you up and about the web a little bit. :)

[xine]

"As someone who has spent way too much time looking for, say, a pair of glasses only to find that I have one pair perched on my head... I can totally see myself doing this."

That's what I was gonna say!

[kcb]

Yeah, the leg story tops glasses-on-the-head any day. I was wondering about hopping, too.

I once came home from a medical procedure distressed, thinking we'd left all my clothes at the surgical center. For some reason (probably because I was not wearing a hospital johnny or my birthday suit) my DH and MIL thought I was hilarious. I blame the drugs.

[jeanne]

Ooooh. I want my brain cleaned! Love that image. Vacuum all the crud out of the little brain folds.

Then I'll never roll over on my glasses in bed (expensive habit) or chase my keys through the pockets of four pairs of pants ...

Love the T-shirt idea.

[Ron Sullivan]

... only to have my ass start beeping, and then me turning around and around in circles like a cat chasing her tail...

OK, I did laugh out loud at that one.

Not that I don't do that losing stuff on a regular basis, of course. I do think I've got a microsingularity somewhere on the desk here.

[Lady Bracknell's Editor]

Ah, yes. That will be what we in the UK call a CRAFT moment.

CRAFT being the acronym for - of course - Can't Remember A F***ing Thing.

I have them with increasing regularity. I'm particularly disappointed that it always takes me at least five minutes to remember the amusing name for them when I've had one.

In the teeth of mounting evidence that it really is just my age, I continue to hold the Tramadol entirely responsible.

[Lene]

Heh. Middle age is not for the proud. Amen to that.

(I won't tell you about the time I put my keys in the fridge)