Dementia and a Dog's Bum

At least I remembered to put on pants...

Junior Misssy is a nanosummer away from starting school and so things are being demanded of me left, right and centre. Things that I cannot forget about or I will come across as the Britney Spears of the parenting tribe. If I don’t come across as that already.

This week she brings home a learning pack which has various items which must be played with, learnt from and returned without having to be retrieved in broken pieces from the dog’s digestive system. Having a dog whose turds recently have included some yellow Lego, a small key and a Polly Pocket head and foot, I’m preparing to rinse, scrub, boil, disinfect and superglue*.

I am on tenterhooks about the whole sorry enterprise and am obsessive about keeping the pack together to the point at screaming at the kids if they so much as go near it. Come Monday the pack is to be returned, no matter how intact or dog saliva coated it is. The UK’s leading betting concern, William Hill, is giving current odds of 1-10 that I will leave it at the front door unreturned anyway.

These odds are based on past remembering-important-stuff form. Form, and my recent fetlock injury.

I am horrifically forgetful and as I sail full-steam into the middle part of my adulthood, I realise what a curse the forgetfulness really is and how it affect my daily life. Here’s a list of stuff I have forgotten this week or will forget in the near future:

1. A dentist appointment with The Money Grabbing Tooth Jockey this Monday which I even programmed into my mobile phone. Genius! It would have all been so sweet if I hadn't forgotten to take my mobile phone home from my desk at work. I will have to wait months before I get another appointment and I really want my front tooth de-squiffed. The Snaggle Tooth look really isn’t in this season, no matter what Kate Moss’s agent says. Even Bowie has his teeth fixed these days. Where Bowie leads, I follow.
   

2. I will forget to let the holidaymakers into my Mum’s holiday cottage tomorrow. It's a guarantee. I have “4pm cottage” written on my, now unwashable, hand in black ink but even if I were to get it tattooed on my chest I would still forget. My mum is out of the country, currently invading the US in old lady shorts (come on you know the ones- knee length and beige with an elasticated high waist), but I know that she will call me to ask if I remembered. As soon as I hear her voice, I will remember what it is I forgot.

Given her proximity to the power seat of the US, she may get George Bush to order an air attack on my house as a result. Hey, he’s done worse for less.

3. Junior Misssy is invited to a kid’s party on Thursday. I will not remember until the following Friday when she comes home crying from hearing all the stories of the partygoers who enjoyed the festivities and whose Mums aren’t suffering from early on-set dementia.

4. I forgot to get my passport photograph taken for the India visa application which is supposed to be sent off this week. Meeester was not happy. So I rushed out with no makeup, hair like a monkey’s butt and a bad attitude to have the worst passport photo of all time taken. I look like Myra’s Hindley’s more aggressive sister snapped whilst suffering from trapped wind.

I don’t get it. In my work I am pretty efficient and well, quite good at stuff. Why is the personal life so completely haphazard? And once I hit actual pensionerhood and real clinical dementia takes hold, will anyone notice the difference?

* For the purposes of any school board members reading, of course I’m not. I will refund or replace with dog turd taint free items. Your children are safe. (Hehe, that’ll fool ‘em...)

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