It’s true.
I am now spending a good portion of my leisure time looking for things that I have misplaced. I don’t know if it is because I have more stuff to keep track of or just plain couldn’t remember my nose if it weren’t screwed on my face.
But I am in good company!
I am infected with a common ailment of the Senior Crowd — forgetfulness!
Just last night I lost my phone again, and had to “call it” over-and-over before I located it. If it isn’t the phone, its my glasses, or my purse. Don’t tell me I need to have a certain place where I always put those items. It doesn’t help.
I took off a good pair of glasses over two months ago and haven’t seen them since. Sooner or later, they just HAVE to turn up!
While sitting at the welcome desk at the Pawnee Valley Community Hospital as an Auxiliary lady, I recently rediscovered that I am not alone.
Clarabelle is about 80 years old and a very sharp-looking woman. She walked into the hospital during my shift. She was there at the hospital for some tests, I suppose.
But while visiting with us at the desk, she told us how just recently she lost her bottom front partial…For you younger fillies, that means her lower front teeth. She didn’t know where it was and she couldn’t imagine how she could have lost it. Them.
She attended church on Sunday with no bottom teeth. Imagine her embarrassment, and how she had to talk with her lower lip stiffly extended over her lower gums. She was at the point of wondering if she had thrown them away somehow and wondering how much it would cost to replace them.
Lo and Behold they turned up. And guess where? Clarabelle wanted to look up a particular recipe and reached up in the cupboard in the kitchen to retrieve a recipe for Rhubarb pie. When she opened the cookbook, there were the teeth. Somehow the partial had hooked on to a page and when the cookbook was closed and filed away, so were the teeth! Clara was SO relieved.
I am still hopeful that my glasses will come back soon. I miss them. Clarabelle suggested I look in my cookbooks. I just might do that!
Just lately, Fred baptized his cell phone and that nasty old water has snuffed out the lives of several of his previous phones as well. This time, Fred had placed the phone in his swim trunks pocket, and didn’t discover the phone until he had been sitting in the hot tub for about 5 minutes. He felt an odd bump under him and remembered!  Too late.  The I-phone was history.
A male friend of ours lost a hearing aid about a month ago.  He and his wife tore the house apart, and he even searched the driveway to see if the teensy little button of a hearing aid was hidden among the pebbles.  He had mostly given up the quest and had already visited his audiologist to order another (to the tune of $4,000).
One afternoon he decided to vacuum the family car, and while vacuuming, he decided to take the narrow wand off the end of the hose and change it to the brush. As he removed the narrow wand from the hose, he saw the hearing aid, wedged in the narrow opening. It should have passed on through to the dust bag, but it didn’t . It was hanging on, just like the glasses were clinging to the cookbook.
Sometimes one wonders if these things have minds of their own.
Reginalda  related a story to me of losing her car keys. She owned another set so didn’t get herself in a tizzy. But weeks, maybe months after the loss, she grabbed a seldom-used cloth bag out of the closet while she was cleaning. Something was jingling! There were the keys. She had used this bag when she had taken the dog to the vet, and dropped her keys in the bag. She had used the bag for the dog articles that she needed to send with the dog.
I asked my Auxiliary sisters for help with this article and asked if any of them had a good story of their forgetfulness, would they please see me after the meeting to share their story with me?
After the meeting, I hung around. No one offered anything.
I know what happened.
They FORGOT!

“A Woman’s View” is Judi Tabler’s reflection of her experiences and events. She is a wife, mother, writer, teacher, grandmother, and even a great grandmother.