Lost in my Genes

I used to worry about my propensity for loosing things. I can loose things while I am holding them in my hand. I constantly take off my glasses and then have no idea where they are. The biggest problem with that is I cannot see my glasses once they are off. That is also why there is super glue holding one of the lenses in place.

When I am working on a car I spend most of my time trying to find my tools. A wrench that I just had in my hand can grow legs and hide for several minutes. Some never get found. I have a large hammer that I finally painted yellow years ago because I could never find it. Now that all the paint is worn off I am back to loosing it again.

Unless I hang my keys on the hook in the living room I can never find them. My pocket knife is lost more than it is found. The only thing it seems that I don’t loose is my truck and it is huge and bright red.

But recently I remembered something that put things in perspective. Many years back I learned that I am a descendant of John White. Who is John White you ask? Well I will tell you.

In 1587 there was an attempt to establish a colony at Roanoke, Virginia ( now in present day North Carolina). John White was in charge of that colony. He went back to England for supplies and when he returned the colony was gone. He had lost an entire colony of people.

What does that little lesson in early American history mean. Well it means that we White’s have been loosing things for hundreds of years. It is a genetic predisposition. I can no more change it than I can stop the rain. However, it does make it a little easier to smile when I loose yet another ink pen - at least I never lost an entire colony.

I forgot

My oldest daughter tells me that my hair is turning grey. I disagree. I think I am turning blonde. I keep doing these things that make no sense. Like tonight for example, I was watching The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that I had taped last night because Bill Cosby was a guest. I came in from working and sat down in my chair to eat and turned the tape on. After I finished eating I had a terrible thought. I was going to have to stay up later than I wanted to because I hadn’t taken a shower yet. The reason is that I don’t like to go to bed with my hair wet because it stands up like medusas snake-do and is impossible to tame the next morning. (Vain I know, but at least I don’t gel, mousse, and spray it down.) Then I remembered that it was only 7 pm and the show I was watching was taped.

If that was the only time something like that had happened I wouldn’t worry about it. However, it is becoming a daily occurrence. I can’t tell you how many times I have opened the microwave to heat up something and found the something that I heated up last night and then forgot about. Sometimes it doesn’t even make it into the microwave. I find a ruined un-frozen dinner sitting in the box on the counter.

I have to be careful with channel surfing because, more often than not, I will forget what I was watching when I started surfing which leads to more surfing and more forgetting. It is not unusual for an hour to go by and for me to have surfed through every channel and still not know what I was watching. I don’t know how people with the hundreds of satellite channels do it. I can’t keep track of seven stations. When I had cable I just surfed around until I passed out from hunger because I forgot to eat the dinner that was in the microwave.

Since I know that I cant remember anything I wrote myself notes and then promptly loose them, and then when i find them I have no idea what they mean. I call numbers all the time and say, “ Hi, I am William White. I found your number in my wallet and I have no idea how it got there. Do you know who I am?” Which sometimes leads to long awkward silences, and the occasional, “If you call back, I’ll call the cops.”

I cannot count the number of times I have looked through old computer files and found long rambling narratives I have written, that show great promise, but I have no idea what they are about. Or I open up an old notepad and see where I have written something down and I am not sure if it is a story idea or a list of things to do. Sometimes I try to work these scraps of information into a essay, Eggs, bacon, preparation H. But at that they don’t make sense. Wash car, vacuum hair, spaghetti.

To help with all this brain malfunction, my dad gave me his old Palm Pilot. It is a great tool. Now I carry all my phone numbers, things to do, appointments, and notes. It is a great way for me to carry more information around that I have no idea what it means. I find things like: lawn mower, potatoes, boots, and air scrawled in the memo pad section. I don’t know what they mean but they are there in this hi-tech wonder so they must be important.

The Palm is also one more reason for me to drive around the block and them come back to the apartment to get something. I have to make special trips for my keys, wallet, laptop computer, cell phone, and now for the Palm. I am sure that my neighbors take bets on how many times I am going to have to come back and get something.

I once drove all the way to Franklin, NC without my wallet to get a load of scrap metal. If you are not familiar with Franklin it is one downhill slide from Tennessee and a 3 hour drive from my apartment. I took my time loading up the truck and was ready to come home when I noticed that I was low on gas and needed to fill up before I headed in. I also noticed that I didn’t have my wallet. I scrounged through the WarWagon and came up with a few dollars in change, put that in the tank, and barely made it to Asheville. I then got to spend a long, hot, sweaty night not sleeping in the front of the truck. Finally, the scrap yard opened and I was able to unload and get some money for breakfast and gas.

And speaking of my wallet, there is a cashier at a store here in town that knows who I am and calls me when I forget my wallet. When I was having to walk with a cane for a while I was forever having to go back to a store and get the stupid thing off of a shopping cart where I had hung it when I unloaded the cart (yeah I know I didn’t put it back in the buggy corral but I was hurting). One gas station used to keep my cane when I left it leaning against a pump. I learned eventually to keep a second cane in the truck.

So what is the point to all this babbling. Well, to be honest with you I cannot remember. But whatever it is, I can blame it on blonde roots.