Lost Filling Saves Evening.

 Bee on the coleus flower stalk.

There is nothing like fear to cut anger. I think it's a better salve than happiness because when you're really angry you're invested in holding on to it, and nothing as post-ponable as happiness will oust it.

Last night I was stirring the pot again, walking to the corner drugstore to get a repair kit for my mother-in-law, who'd lost a dental filling during her encounter with a slice of cranberry nut bread from Zaro's. That wasn't why I was angry, on the contrary - I'd hoped taking the walk would distract me from the bitter feeling that was threatening to ruin the start of my weekend, if it hadn't already. Anyway, I walk in to the Walgreen's (which has come and plunked itself down in the old location of our neighborhood grocery store, which was itself hemmed out by astronomical lease rates. I heard Walgreen's paid $5 million, and the grocery store manager told me they just couldn't beat or even match it). I went quickly to the dental aisle and picked up the repair kit and some Ambesol in case my mother-in-law started to have pain - then I went to the register to pay. In front of me there was a frail elderly lady who was speaking in a whisper to the checkout girl while sliding her Chase banking card across the counter. Then she turned to me, stepped aside and said - 'Miss, go ahead.' Normally I would, because I am always in a rush, but instead I said - no, no take your time. I realized that the wait was cooling me down and I really didn't mind. So the old lady turned back to the girl and continued speaking: 'This is my card' (again sliding it towards the register). She had no purchases. Waving her hand: 'I went back, but they are all out'. The girl and I turned to look toward the back of the store trying to figure out what it was that she couldn't find. 'They are out and about doing things'. 'I came out and the door closed, see this is my card' (again pushing the bankcard forward as if it would somehow explain everything) 'I put the key in, I think it was the wrong door...' At this, she put her hand over her mouth in a expression that was a mix of despair and "oh-oh, I made a mistake". It was then that I noticed two medical bracelets on her right wrist and my insides dropped. She was lost, or forgetting, or both. I don't know if we were seeing 'Big Al' or a close cousin, but immediately connecting the dots, the room collapsed into concerted action. It was like slow motion suddenly speeding up again as it does in the Matrix movies. The salesgirl took her to have a seat at the Pharmacy, and made a call to the medics. The security guard nodded assuredly as if he'd just foiled a robbery. Another sales person materialized at the register to ring up my purchases which now seemed  ridiculous and comforting at the same time - a lost filling, what a laughable thing! That was when happiness (or a close cousin) was free to make its entry.

Photo: this morning, while writing

Compensation

I have been plagued most of my life by a propensity for getting lost, and by a poor memory. Both would haunt me in serial nightmares which may have their roots in childhood trauma (what doesn't?) and would eventually mushroom into a lifelong fear of getting lost and forgetting.

Getting lost and forgetting.
One of my mother's sisters spent her last years in a deep fog, a victim of Alzheimer's. Two of her other siblings are in earlier, but nevertheless devastating stages of the illness. My Aunt Yvonne called up the other day from Devon, England where she lives alone. She is sill lucid enough to realize that she is forgetting, which may be more distressing than being in total oblivion. She does not want to live alone anymore and is planning what she says will be her last trip to Australia, a country she very much loves.
My Uncle Henry lives in Texas. He wakes up at night disoriented and wanders through the house looking for the familiar among the mundane. He thinks he's lost, but he's forgetting too. Is there any difference?

Terrifying as this all is, it is not the kind of 'getting lost and forgetting' that has plagued me.
Let's start with numbers. I can't hold them in the order that I got them. Dyslexia? Maybe.
My job is all about numbers - special numbers like prices, quantities and dates. Markdowns and margins.
These are numbers that no one can afford for me to get wrong, so to compensate for my handicap I have become a note-taker extraordinaire. I have notebooks dating back ten years detailing my daily to-do's and important events including a log of the days I was not at work ( absence is a defense), phone numbers, user names and passwords for the secured sites and databases I must navigate in the course of doing my job.
If there is a meeting, however informal, I take the minutes. Minutes are especially important in two-person meetings. If I sense that 'drape thy derriere' (aka C.Y.A) insurance is required, I follow up with an email detailing the exchange. This dysfunction is not limited to numbers, but happily, problems with prose are less in evidence. My worst work-related nightmare is being cornered with a question whose answer I know but can't remember. Try proving that. I'd be the perfect fall-gal if I couldn't  refute or confirm something with conviction, and as you know, conviction is the difference between the blue sky and a self-healing... I mean, a cell ceiling.

Similarly, I have no sense of direction - no internal gyroscope. Or, not one that functions: turn me around a few times and I'm lost. I thought a GPS would make up for my non-existent nose for North, but it did so much more. The directions given by the typical GPS are moronic, containing lots of loops and 'long cuts'. However, following them is not as moronic as getting lost and it is loads better than feeling lost.
I've named my GPS's female voice 'Alice' as in Jefferson Airplane's Go Ask Alice.
I once followed Alice's directions for Brooklyn which took me from the Bronx to lower Manhattan via the FDR Drive and through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Had I Map-Quested it, I might have gotten there faster than you could say 'Jackie Robinson Parkway', but at least I had the luxury of telling Alice where to get off, rather than feeling like an idiot that I got lost. GPS devices are really mis-marketed as navigational aids; they're at least 50% psychological aids, too.

In all seriousness, I would not like to fall victim to 'Big Al'. I'd much rather lose my faculties gradually in a way that my son and future grandchildren would find at least mildly entertaining. The more hokey stereotypes I can fit, the better. Advances in dentistry have probably saved my teeth from a watery resting place and circumvented a slew of old-lady jokes, but hell - I can get bifocals, my hearing could fade gradually.
In the movie 'Mission Impossible III', Tom Cruise's character, breathless from a brush with death, phones a friend for a favor: access to some restricted data files. The friend says, 'I've gotta use my scissors and shit for this.' which to me, was hilarious. I cracked up laughing, repeating it (at least twice) to my son, who informed me dryly with a withering look: Mom, it's 'I'm gonna lose my citizenship for this.'
Which, in 22 states and counting, would be no joke. I like what I heard better.