Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Senior Moments

I hesitate to write about Senior Moments. I hesistate even to acknowledge that such things exist. However, there are some things too blatant to ignore, and last Sundays's experience, whilst readying myself for Church, made me face up to an unpleasant truth.

I DO have SENIOR MOMENTS - I do have times when the wires just don't connect, or the attention slips (just fractionally) and one is (just slightly) chagrined.

I'm not too bad at remembering names and birthdays but at what point of our lives certain things happened I score badly. Too much confusion, too much busyness, too many children doing too many things. I have to remember children's birth dates and then count forward until I come to the approximate age of the child when certain things happened.

Well, I have learned to cope with that, and I'm pretty good at covering up other faux pas I might make because of faulty memory. I usually put the salt and pepper back in the cupboard and the milk in the fridge and the laundry pretty well always ends up in the right place. My husband might disagree on some points, and I guess last Sunday's experience puts him on pretty stable ground.

On Sunday I went to church in a rosy haze!! Sundays are usually pretty relaxed days, with an early morning start at getting spiffed up, music rounded up and off we go. I was just putting the finishing touches to the getting ready program, - was all dressed, powdered, rouged and curled. I reached for the hair spray, applied it liberally, and as I replaced it on the counter noticed it was the Rose Linen and Room Spray, rather than the hair spray.

I slumped over the counter, head in hands. Husband, alarmed, sprang to attention! Why had wife, (who he cherishes and who gets his breakfast, lunch and dinner) collapsed???

He was relieved to find it was not a physical problem, just a mental aberration.

Off to church, smelling mighty lak a rose, up to the organ, well away from the congregation. I played through the service in perfumed splendour. Everyone was polite at tea time, - but daughter, (endearing child that she is) when we got home, threw up her hands in horror, - overcome by the rosy fumes.

The only thing that consoled me was remembering a friend, (when we were much much younger) arriving late at a meeting because she had picked up the shaving foam instead of the hair spray.

Ah, Senior Moments, - may they be few and far between and not too apparent to any except oneself.

It was cold comfort to hear husband muttering darkly from the kitchen that he had even forgotten how to set a mouse trap.