I’d just like to check and see if anyone else is in the same shape I am, memory-wise. It seems that my head is so full of imaginary friends (and I do mean my characters…I gave up on Super Elizabeth a long time ago) that I’ve become very, very forgetful.
I forget things I’m supposed to attend. I forget where I’ve put something. I forget why I went upstairs. I forget why I went to the store.
And very frequently, I’m forgetting people. This is very bad because these people never forget me and spend their lives tormenting me in the drugstore, grocery store, post office, and library: “Elizabeth! How are you? And how is your husband? And your two children? Gosh, your son must be going into 7th grade now? Wow! Please tell your family I said hi.” And I am smiling and stuttering and wondering who the hell these people are.
My good friends know that I will never introduce them to anyone because I won’t remember who the person is who acts like they know me.
Lately I’ve tried to do a pre-emptive strike: if a person looks even vaguely familiar, I go up to talk to them. If I act like I know them first, then they won’t realize I don’t remember them at all.
This led to a very embarrassing situation for me at the Harris Teeter grocery store the other day. There was a middle-aged man in the frozen foods that I thought looked familiar. “Hi there!” I said brightly and started a conversation with him. He looked surprised, but pleased. I ended up with, “Well, I hope I’ll see you at Boy Scouts soon.” “Oh,” he said with crinkled brow, “I don’t have a son.”
Dear God. So my poor memory led to me chatting up strange men at the grocery store.
Anyhow, the point of this story is to find out if anyone else is in the same mess? Oh---and also, do people talk to you when you’re in your own, creative little world and they have t0 say “Ma’am? Ma’am? Ma’am?” a few times before you snap-to?
Or do I need to make an appointment with my GP?