Senior Moments in Everyday Life

I went back thrice inside the house after having locked the door to start to work the other day. My poor husband who generally gives me a ride to the station where I pick up my train to work was really exasperated. He is one person, who generally doesn’t forget the daily trivial things. And I am the kind who forgets those. I would be used to doing something daily and baam, one fine day, just forget doing it. Wouldn’t have even realized that I had forgotten it.

After marriage, the great researcher that R is, he said that I may be running low on sugar when I get into these bouts of forgetfulness. But with the sweet tooth that I have, I can never possibly be running low on sugar to have my senior moments. I have been having them from my school days. When I told him a couple of too standing out instances, he gave up on me. These days, I can see that he has learned to live with this woman, who at times can even forget her name if she is deeply lost somewhere in her thoughts.

Once during my 7th grade, I ended up going to the exam hall thinking I was taking English II. It was the half-yearly exam. And to my surprise, I receive a Math question paper to be answered. I ask my teacher, isn’t it English II today and she says, ‘no my dear it’s on the next day or the very next day.’ (I don’t remember what she said). The shock of receiving the Math paper to answer was indeed too much. What I cannot still believe is, there must have been people outside the hall with some math book or paper with trying to memorize formulae’s and stuff. How did I possibly miss it. I have no clue. But I get into answering and eventually gave the answer sheet and went home.

Now comes the part of answering my dad. He was indeed shocked. Until, now, it used to be forgetting home works, losing pens, slippers, and umbrellas. But this was like, having the exam time-table right in my school dairy, but still forgetting it and going prepared for another exam. That got him worried as to what was happening to the kid and waited till I received my mark sheet. The mark sheet had no change. The marks were in the usual 70s. May be one or two up or down.

Another similar instance in grade 10. For my public exam of 10th and 12th my dad followed my time-table. I did goof up again in my 11th grade. The best was when I goofed up in college. I went for my 3rd semester exams a day early, thinking we start our exams that day. I see a couple of my friends and ask them for the others, wondering why they are not around yet for the exam was going to start in another 20 minutes or so. I still remember the way, a friend of mine named Priya yelled at me. She was like, ‘what the hell are you doing here.’ And I go, that I am here for blah blah blah (the name of the paper that I think that was). At which she says, ‘why on earth do you want to insult us in front of juniors? We (as in the second years) do not start our 3rd semester exams until next week. It’s the arrears of our first semester that we (as in those who have arrears—no wonder most of my classmates are not around—) have come to attend today. So just go home.’

I had a very perplexed look still and went to the hall to check the time-table again. Look at the confidence in the goofing up that I do. She stopped talking to me for a month because of that. And when I go home early and tell this to my granny, she is totally perplexed. The whole family is perplexed as to how I can repeatedly do this. Thank goodness, I didn’t go a day or two later for my exams. If I had done that, I would ended up writing it as an arrear paper in my 5th semester.

It didn’t end there. My friends then started following the time table to me. And during my M.Phil days, my professors called me up to tell me to remind classes for we used to have classes some 2 or 3 days a week and I did forget to go to class once and they had shelved that class. It’s the arguments that I generate were interesting for the HOD that they did not want to have a class without me. Can you believe that. That did make my day. Ofcourse she did scream at me when I said that I had forgotten we had a class that day. I still remember the way a friend of mine cursed me for that. Later, she made it a practice to come home and pick me up before going. I have been really upset and tried a lot to keep myself aware. But have never succeeded.

It continues till this day, and with dad at home I forget to take the house keys too. That’s what I did the other day. The first time it was the keys, the second time it was my cell phone and the third time, it was my work card key. Luckily, dad was there to open the door. If not, I would have locked myself out with me locking and getting out of the house without the house keys one me. Not believing my story of forgetting the exam time-table, R got it confirmed from dad. And ever since, he has given up on me and my forgetfulness. Atleast he has stopped getting exasperated when I forget things.

Funny, how I do remember a lot of stuff. Everyone in the family trusts me for recipes. It just comes out of my head. But then, I do forget to switch off the stove at times which ends up in getting the food burnt. But only some days are that way. There are days when I am totally on my toes. I would end up remembering things that I would feel really weird about myself for remembering.

I have so much of post-its and reminders set at work. And somehow its funny that I have never forgotten anything crucial at work yet.