Early Alzheimers

I'm worried about my memory. There are many signs that within 20 years I will be the Crazy Cat Lady down the street. For example:

* I've had a bag of pretzels at work that has been substituting for many meals. I went to reach for the bag yesterday and was dismayed to find them missing. Pretzel stealing, really? I found myself angry and disappointed in whatever desperate co-worker had committed such a crime. I went back to work, and as a couple of hours later I again wished for some pretzels to eat, into my mind flashed an image of me, polishing off the last of the pretzels and almost licking the bag to make sure I got every crumb...and then throwing the bag away. I ate all the pretzels myself, turns out. Heh heh....oops.

* I once forgot to wear a bra in 8th grade (um, because I didn't need one then) and it happened to be the day they do the scoliosis check, which, if you don't know, requires you to be shirtless.

* I shamelessly flirted once with a boy who, apparently, my friend had just declared her interest in. I was there, apparently, when she did so. To this day I have no recollection of that declaration, but enough witnesses have attested to my presence that I believe I was there and just completely forgot it.

* Sometimes I forget that the youngest children of my siblings exist. Sorry, siblings, but it happens. I remember distinctly that one time I looked at my niece Katie and couldn't figure out why Karly (her older sister) was so small.

* I forgot about a final in one of my last semester's classes. Just plain forgot about it. I mean, how this happens is beyond me, as there are many reminders about finals, like...calling it Finals Week. And studying. And taking lots of other finals.

The annoying thing is that I have a gift for remembering things that don't matter, i.e. my 8th grade crush's phone number/birthday/middle name/siblings' middle names/the first song I ever heard him play on the guitar. Also, hours and hours of movie lines and song lyrics are constantly playing through my mind, even when they are movies and songs I don't like. Once I memorize a phone number, it never leaves me....but I'll probably tell you a story 6 times before I remember that you've heard it before. Come to think of it, maybe I'm Rainman.

The other annoying thing is that it's the poorest excuse in the book. I know what it's like to have someone tell you they forgot something and to have absolutely no sympathy for that claim. I've always believed that if you forget something you probably don't care about it much. I no longer believe that. I think if you forget something you a) simply aren't obsessing about it; b) were trying to remember 50 things at exactly the same time and it just lost the battle of wits; and/or c) have a mind with the capacity for only so much, and at this time seems to be rather full of useless information. So....sorry. Sorry for the things I forget. I'm not sure what it will take to get your birthday to take the place of Paul's phone number in my brain.