Yeah, yeah, I know. Five minutes ago, I was on the counter, next to the toaster, and now I’m gone and you can’t understand how that happened.
Remember those stories about when the kids know it’s time to put mother in a home. They always seem to center around the refrigerator and food.
How old are you now? Sixty-five. Seventy? And you’re going to make believe you’re shocked that you can’t find me? Please, sister, I am not the hair you pluck from your chin and pretend never existed. I am the forerunner of really scary aging; the container of milk you will find in the cabinet under the silverware drawer only when it starts to smell; the day you put the car into reverse and slam through a Starbucks window; the brain atrophying like a desiccated apple in the back of the fridge.
Sorry, that was cruel. Aging is a natural part of the human cycle, the golden years, when you are free to flower into your true self now that you are not distracted by the male gaze. Or the employer’s. Or anyone’s else’s.
And everyone misplaces things from time to time. I’m sure you will be able to find me if you put what’s left of your mind into it.
On the Case
Let’s review this calmly: You’d been making your solitary breakfast; slapping a pod into your Single Serve Keurig; mashing a soul-killing hard-boiled egg; smearing me, your beloved fake butter, on to some toast, trying to get rid of that belly, which at sixty-whatever ain’t gonna happen. You thought you’d tossed me into the butter compartment before sitting down to eat because you’ve always been compulsive and, as one ages, these personality tics grow worse. And then, when it was time for lunch (11:30, but one has to somehow fill those empty hours) and you tried to find me, I was missing.
You scoured the refrigerator (not literally, sad to say) and I was nowhere. Not under the asiago and reduced fat Swiss in the cheese drawer, though that was a good association; not behind that ancient container of olives, which at this point would make a clever substitute for Sarin. Hey, critic of my totalitarian policies, try some of these. You even pawed through the garbage.
Has It Really Come to This
Remember those stories about when the kids know it’s time to put mother in a home. They always seem to center around the refrigerator and food. The offspring opens the refrigerator and there’s Mother’s bra. Or something smells peculiar, and they find a rotting piece of chicken in the drawer of the unknown cables. Lucky for you, you don’t have kids.
Streaming Spotify Daily Mix when you were roasting a chicken last night was not a great idea.
No, don’t start hyperventilating; it will only make things worse.
Like last week, when you were obsessing about whether you had long COVID as you were getting ready for bed and instead of Systane, you grabbed the vial of Fluocinonide hair growth solution and put some drops of that in your eyes? Your atrophied little apple brain can’t handle thinking about more than one thing at a time; you have to concentrate. Streaming Spotify Daily Mix when you were roasting a chicken last night was not a great idea. Yes, the chicken was delicious, but turning on the oven is only part of cooking, you also need to remember to….
Yes, very good, turn the oven off.
Now, open the kitchen window, grab your keys and run out of the house as fast as you can.
No, I do not know where you left your keys.
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