Lately it has become evident that my mind is slipping. Not a great deal, as some might contend. Rather, it is a slow and deliberate slippage that one wouldn’t really notice unless one hung around me for an hour or more.
Thankfully, for me, I have my cell phone to remind me of important things. I’ve set it to go off on the 6th to remind me of a hair appointment on the 7th. It has a list of things that I need to purchase at the grocery store, and I’ve found it to be a useful something to refer to when I go to the laundry room and need a reminder as to why I came there in the first place.
Having a mind that isn’t as sharp as it used to be and depending on a cell phone to remind me of life’s little imperatives really poses a problem when I forget where I put the dang thing.
When I misplaced my cell phone the other day, I did the only thing that I could do and called myself from the landline.
When my cell didn’t ring, I called me again. I called me as I checked the couch cushions, dialed me up as I peeked under the bed, and rang me again as I peered into the depths of the laundry basket, to no avail.
Why, I must have called me 20 times, but I’ll be dogged if the device would ring. And, not being a quick thinker, it simply never dawned on me that I may have transposed two of the numbers and was calling someone else.
It didn’t occur to me when I finally found my cell phone and didn’t see any missed calls. And it certainly didn’t dawn on me when my landline rang moments later from a number that was painfully close to that of my cell phone.
“Hello. Clinches,” I said in a cheery voice.
“Who is this?” a man asked in a no-nonsense manner.
“Uh,” I said with an eye roll, “Clinches?”
Was it me, or did I just say that?
“Did you call me?” he then asked.
I thought that perhaps I may have found someone with a memory worse than mine, and I wanted to treat him kindly. After all, we short-memory people must stick together. Perhaps form a support group and meet on Monday nights — if we can remember to go.
“No, sir,” I said carefully, since I didn’t want to make him feel bad. “You called me.”
“No,” he said with annoying insistence, “you called me.”
The thing about the slippery slope of the mind is that you don’t want to insist upon anything unless you’re sure. And how can one be sure if one’s mind is slipping? Would one really know?
Therefore, I decided to give in. “Fine,” I said. And since he was the one who was so sure he was so right, I asked him, “What did I want?” “I don’t know,” and this is when I sensed he was about to blow. “You called me!” Is it just me or are you getting a sense of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” with this thing?
“No, sir, you called me. Just moments ago,” and, Lord love him, the poor soul finally snapped.
“Someone from your phone number called my cell number no less than 20 times within the last hour!”
That’s when the sun finally peeked through the clouds and brought it all to light for me.
It was then that it became painfully obvious that I hadn’t been calling my cell number in an all-out attempt to locate my cell phone, but this poor man’s device whose number was painfully close to mine.
Yet, how does one explain that to a complete stranger? Does one need to go into details?
Recreate scenarios? Perhaps call someone who has a mind that still fires on all cylinders and see if they can make sense of it all?
I simply must start double-checking numbers before repeatedly dialing them.
Note to self.
Now I just need to see if there’s an app I can put on my phone to remind me of that.
Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” You can reach her by sending an email to [email protected].