My increasing memory deficiencies

I have noticed lately that my memory is not up to par. I keep forgetting to do things, or I keep forgetting what I am supposed to do. Many are the times I have walked into a room and forgotten what I had gone there for in the first place. Then I always forget where I have placed my handbag, my phone, my keys…I never used to be this forgetful before. It is a recent development which started about three weeks ago.

Take last Sunday for example. Seeing as it is the beginning of the month, the house shopping had to be done. So I threw on a tee and some leggins, then removed my house slippers and slipped on my favorite Maasai sandals. And off to the shopping store I went.

Only for me to realize a few minutes later that I had one blue house slipper and on the other foot was the Maasai sandal! For an extended moment I gazed at my feet and shook my head, wondering if I was going crazy or not. I was absolutely sure that I had removed the house slippers and slipped on the Maasai sandals – on both feet! But clearly not.

So I contemplated returning to the house (which would have been tooooooooooooo much work – driving back to the house, parking the car, climbing stairs, opening the door, climbing down the stairs again, starting the car again…etcetera etcetera in the hot midday sun by the way). Either that or I proceed with my shopping errand, hoping no one would notice my peculiar shoe adornments. I happily opted for the latter. Besides, who will dare ask a pregnant woman why she has different shoes on her feet?

But it turns out I had underestimated people’s keen eye for detail. It being a Sunday, there were many other shoppers in the store. And yes, many of them did cast curious glances at my feet. Most interesting though was kids, who, in their innocence, just cannot hide their observations. I noticed two kids pointing at my feet and laughing. I laughed with them:-).

Anyway, that is just one of the many forgetful or memory loss episodes I have been having of late. The other day I was stuck in traffic and had posed the car on neutral. But when the traffic began moving, I was at a total loss of what I was supposed to do next. What gear was I supposed to engage? How was I supposed to get the car to move? My car is automatic, and for a full minute and a half I was like a zombie – staring at the gear box wondering exactly what I was to do. Yet driving is something I have done over the years, but at that particular moment, all those gears – 1, 2, 3,D, N, R and P looked like scary foreign gizmos to me.

In that temporary blank moment, I began sweating like crazy, hoping those nasty traffic cops would not come running towards me with their rungus in the air and ‘beat’ my car for halting traffic. But poor me simply could not figure out how I was supposed to get the car to move forward.

Meanwhile, our lovely Kenyan drivers kept hooting at me and flashing their lights, ordering me to move, perhaps cursing me out too. But why are Kenyan drivers such an impatient lot of people by the way? But that’s a story for another day.

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