A Few More Slips

 I had an unexpected meeting the other day with my old friend Vyt, who sent me a message saying that he had "accidentally" ended up at the Renon Plaza Starbucks and wondered whether I'd like to come out. I said that I would be there in 15 minutes, forgetting the reality that it would take me 15 minutes just to put on and tie my shoes. But anyway, I did eventually show up for the meeting, a coffee already waiting for me (thanks, Vyt). 

During our conversation, which usually ranges far and wide but this time was kind of centered on our various health complaints, I was describing a time, some years ago now, when I used to take Louis to work on the motorbike, from Biaung to Denpasar, twice a day (a goodly distance, as goodly distances go), and I was marveling at how I used to be able to do such things without a second thought. It seemed normal. In fact, the trip was always more trying for my passenger than for me because she preferred a car with a comfortable seat, and AC, where she wouldn't have to muss her hair with a helmet or expose her clothing to the weather and so on. We didn't have any money for a car. 

In any case, when I mentioned Biaung, Vyt and his wife seemed not to have heard the name before. "Biaung, Vyt! You know. Out by Ketewel. You lived next door to me, for goodness sake."

Blank stares. That 'surely have we heard wrong' look. That 'what in the world is he talking about' look. 

Well, that's because, as I eventually realized, Vyt never lived by me in Biaung. He never lived in Biaung at all. Vyt was my neighbor in Renon. 

Oh dear. 

Well, the next day I had a birthday party to go to (which was, actually, in Biaung. I didn't really want to go, but kind of felt like I had to--you know, that kinda thing. 

So, at this party, I cheerily approached the birthday boy (just turned 50), put out my hand (so much for social distancing) and wished him a happy birthday. 

Only problem was that this was not, Mayo, the birthday boy. This was another man altogether, whom I had somehow mistaken for Mayo. 

"It's not my birthday," the man said, happily shaking my hand nonetheless. 

Oh, Jeeze. 

"Oh, ha ha, I know, I know. Just kidding."

I wonder if people know you're not just kidding but are really pikun, senile. When they smile in return, when they laugh in return, are they just playing along in order to save a person from embarrassment? 

But that's not even the bad part. Yes, it gets worse, for later on, as I was trying to make my exit from the party, I ran into the same man in the parking lot and once again put out my hand and wished him happy birthday! 

Good Lord.

What is the mental process here? Did my mind conclude, upon seeing him again, that it was his birthday only because it had concluded such, although fallaciously so, the first time around?  How had it left out the correction, the critical fact, the information about who's birthday it was and whose birthday it wasn't?

These are the sorts of things that are happening, rather regularly I'm afraid. People are misplaced, places are shuffled, history is altered. So it goes. Where it ends, nobody knows.