Stuck In Old Lodi Again

If I could somehow predict the arrival of these intermittent days of heightened confusion, I would just stay home and do something less demanding--wash the dishes, or do the laundry, or vacuum the rug. Or sleep.

But their arrival is quite unpredictable, and moreover you don't even know your having one until you find yourself right in the middle of it. Suddenly you hear that familiar music. No point in adjusting your TV set--for you have entered the Twilight Zone.

It was my day off work, and my wife had given me a simple list of things to do, the accomplishment of which should have taken perhaps an hour, certainly less than two.

But folks, it took me the entire day, such that I finished the last chore no sooner than ten minutes before she came home from her own full day of work.

Much of this time was spent driving back and forth between my house and one location or another in order to retrieve whatever I had forgotten--the same item being crucial for the specific task at hand. This means arriving at the bank to buy money orders without remembering to bring the money. It means arriving at the postbox without the letters to be posted. It means taking three trips to the store in order to buy three items--0ne item at a time.

What have you been doing all day? she asks. I have heard this question so many times that they are far beyond counting at this point. She imagines perhaps that I have been sleeping, or maybe just sitting, or maybe watching TV. It seems quite clear to her that I cannot account for six or seven hours of my time.

And the truth is, I can't. Not in any reasonable way, not in a form of accounting that would seem even remotely believable.

So maybe I've been having an affair. Affairs take time, right? And they're much more fun than driving back and forth, over and over, within a radius of three square miles or so.

It is an answer that would fill in the blanks, that would seem to make sense, that would seem more satisfactory even to me. It's not the truth, and yet seems kinder somehow to the reasonable parameters of credulity.