Zombies have been snacking on my brains. You know all those movies about people with long term memory problems? I have the opposite problem. I know who I am and where I live, I remember doing the dishes this morning and what day of the week it is. I just can’t figure out what I’ve done with the peanut butter to save my life.
On Tuesday night after class I went to fill up our compressed natural gas Honda and forgot to disconnect the hose before I drove away. Picture me with an injured car in the PG&E parking lot at 9:30 at night without a wallet, without a cell phone, and in my leotard. It took two more hours, two fire trucks and a tow truck to straighten out that little mess. To be fair, the fire trucks weren’t strictly necessary. The only questions the firemen contained within had for me were where one buys a car like that and what kind of gas mileage I got. We had the car towed to the shop where it has remained all week. Shawn got off the phone with the mechanic.
“So what’s the damage?” I said.
“Just some hoses to be replaced.”
“How much?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“No.” He looked at me. “It will just stress you out. Just, ah, don’t do that again, okay?”
“Oh, okay.”
Sigh.
Then today, while tending an absent friend’s pets, I locked the keys to her garage in her garage...with her cat. It took a locksmith and some cat treats to bail me out of that one.
“Thanks for the business,” the locksmith says.
Bite me.
I’m a danger to myself, my bank account, and apparently, the neighborhood’s feline population.
Splendid.
“Good luck with your brain, Shannon,” a friend tells me this afternoon. Thanks. I’m sure it’s around here somewhere. I’ll look in the fridge next to the peanut butter. I did that with my keys once.