Losers lose things. Are you a loser?
Who loses their remotes several times a day?
Who looks for their missing glasses only to find them on top of their head?
Who forgets the name of one of their family members?
I’ve done all three.
I’ve checked out books from the library; game books to keep the mind sharp. Can’t remember what they were. Doesn’t matter because I found the puzzles too hard. So no help there.
I’ve delayed getting a chain for my glasses because I didn’t want to join the old lady club. But then I saw a friend’s glasses attachment; a black sports looking rubbery thing. Sorry but that’s the best description I can make. Not sure I’ll ever find them using that description on google. But they are cool. Not granny looking.
As for trying to keep track of the remotes, I haven’t found a solution for that. I thought of saddle bags on the arm of my chair. My problem is the remotes fall off my recliner and I have to get down on my hands and knees to look under the stupid chair. In most cases, that’s where the remotes go to be remote.
My glasses are usually in place, next to my bed or on the table next to the recliner. There are times though when their location evades me. Usually I decide I don’t need them. I can see the movie just fine. Until I need to read the captions to understand what the actor has mumbled. Then I have to search everywhere. Same goes for my reading glasses. I think I can read the fine print until it becomes headache inducing and I give up.
Studies say (including the New York Times) that it’s common for people to lose keys, wallets, remotes, glasses, phones, to name just a few. The solution, some say, is to have a “home” for each of these things. I remember when my daughter was a teenager that I had a specific “home” for my scissors. My daughter would use the scissors and never put them back. Never. It drove me crazy because it happened with everything. I once “lost” a leather jacket and a brand new pair of shoes. Yellow shoes. Frustrated, I tackled looking through the mountain-sized pile of clothes in her room. I found both the jacket and shoes along with several other items. My solution? I put a dead bolt on my bedroom door.
She’s OCD about having a tidy house now. I wonder where she keeps her remotes?
I never lose my keys as they have a home. It’s the eyeglasses that are lost daily as they travel from room to room. I solved that problem once by having duplicate pairs for the living room and the bedroom but then my eyes changed and I had to get new prescriptions and couldn’t spend the money on duplicates.
My remotes get eaten by the reclining chair and the bedcovers. I try and keep track of them but they have robot feet that takes them to the underworld; under the chair, under the covers, under the bed. I once went three days without my TV because I couldn’t find the remote. Turns out it was on a small table by the front door. That was a new one.
Sometimes I lose my cats. I call out the front door to get my oldest, Sox, inside. Nothing. I call out the back door. Nothing. I call out the garage door. Nothing. Then I see him snoring away on the recliner. On a dark throw blanket that blends with his coloring.
Noodle, my middle cat, is easier to find. I just tap a spoon against her food bowl and she comes flying from under the car or jumps down from the garage rafters or rushes out from the bushes where she had been stalking some bug. Very food driven!
The other things I find myself and all my friends losing are…words. What are the furry things for my feet called? Oh, slippers. What is the round piece of furniture that I eat at called? Oh, a table. I usually find the words within seconds but it’s still disturbing. One friend laments that he’s losing it when he can’t think of a word. He’s only 53 years old. Welcome to the show! Wait until he gets to my age. Hell, I forgot my great grandson’s name for two days!
What’s a girl to do?…just chill about the words. About the remotes? Fergetaboutit!
Lucy Llewellyn Byard is currently a columnist for the Record-Bee. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
