Who’s there in the what now?

I thought that the grim reaper had come for me for sure. “Mow the lawn!” it screamed. It was just the wife. “But there’s still snow on the ground!” I cried out. And she countered with “That’s no excuse!” No excuse? You want me to mow snow?

“Hi ho, hi ho, off to mow snow I go!”

Well, it’s finally come to this. Early signs of getting old. I’m only middle age and I’m starting to believe that my ability to remember is diminishing. (Middle age if I live to be a hundred.) It could be Alzheimer’s or simply old age creeping up with a hammer. It took days for me to find the correct spelling of Alzheimer, although I do admit to holding the dictionary upside-down. You know, they delivered the newspaper one day, written completely upside-down, boy did I give them a piece of my mind. “Turn the paper over you moron!” Indeed!

As an example of my condition, I was out walking the dogs this morning; you know picking up after them once they do their business. Suddenly it occurred to me that we don’t have any dogs! So where did I get the pooches? What am I going to do with them? I imagined plenty of questions would originate from the WIFE when I got home. It’s little things like that that make you realize that you’re losing your mind.

Was THAT too many THAT’S? Can you have two THAT’S in a row? And if not who’s gonna take the other one? Do I put an add in the newspaper?

Last week I caught myself holding my car keys up to the phone. Now what is that going to accomplish? And to complicate matters even more I don’t even have a car. And every single time something goes missing I search for it in the fridge. Anyway, I went to the grocery store for groceries, imagine that, but I returned home with a case of beer and no groceries. I was faced with a barrage of questions from the WIFE. Where’s the bread, sugar and eggs? Why does your breath smell like garbage? Why are you carrying a dead cat? Where are the dogs that appeared earlier in the story?

I answered all questions with a puzzled look and a shrug. But after having a couple of beers broken over me head, I decided on different tactics.

So I set my mind to it and just like Sherlock I deduced a lot of deductions.The reason I had the beer is kind of self-explanatory, because I get along quite well with beer. We don’t fight at all. “You want me to drink you? I don’t mind in the least.” The beer probably distracted me from the groceries. And I might or might not have had my head in a garbage can sometime during the day.

But I mean what was I supposed to do with the dead cat? Just leave the dead cat lying around? I mean REALLY. What if some kid was walking by and decided to eat it? You think that is not likely, but I ate a few when I was a kid.

Something, something. What was I talking about? Old timers disease? Hey, wait a minute. I don’t remember all these keys on my keyboard. Don’t tell me that burglars are adding keys to my keyboard in the middle of the night? I’ll have to set up my video camera. Wait, I don’t have a video camera so I’ll have to buy one. Where does the Sasquatch keep her purse? But ho, I should probably set out beer instead of a camera. Yes, that works better. Whomever is adding the extra keys will be distracted by the beer. It’s a win win. Unless they decide to drink some?

As strange as it may seem but I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror this morning; I thought I was looking at a gray-haired baboon. I was prepared to call the zoo. I’m aging at an alarming rate. My hair is receding into my head and emerging out of my nose. If I let my nose hairs grow long enough it might work as a comb over. I try to pluck the gray out of my eyebrows, but a baboon without eyebrows doesn’t look quite right.

Additionally, something REALLY WEIRD happened this morning. I called myself on the phone just to see what would happen and I actually answered myself. Someone on the other end said, “Hello, it’s me!”

Isn’t that wild! Anyway, it freaked me out and I hung up. Something is definitely wrong when you start calling yourself. Parallel dimensions I suppose. So my faculties are not what they used to be, some things I remember but others simply pass me by.

I remember when the doctor slapped me when I was born. I tried to kick him but my little legs were too little. I also remember way back when I was a young lad and I had a pet dinosaur named Dino. And a friend across the street named Barney.

Oh yeah, It’s all coming back to me now!