Not Gone Nor Forgotten

This winter has caused us all kinds of memory issues. The cold has robbed our brains of our capacity to remember just the basics.

1. The Daughters have forgotten that we have a place for their shoes in their rooms. Right now there are seven pair of shoes under the table and three pair of shoes in the living room. We picked them up last night. This has all happened since 6:22 this morning. I blame the cold.

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2. We can't seem to remember that the trash men won't--because they've never--come into our house to fetch our trash. We still have to take it out to the trash can. Weird, right? You'd think that as cold as it is, we'd stop having trash in our house. Or, at the very least, that the trash men would actually come gather in from our house, particularly the bathroom trash, which is always overflowing despite the fact that no one actually puts anything in it.

3. Our family believes that when it's cold outside time moves much slower. "Why do I have to get up now?" was the whine this morning when I roused Daughter 1 this morning at the same time as I rouse her every other morning of this school year.

"We have to go to school?" I responded, leaving off the "duh."

"This early?"

"I always tell you to get out of bed this early, honey."

"But it's cold."

4. We are under the mistaken belief that I control the weather. I appreciate the fact that my family gives me credit for being that powerful, but really--when it's so stinkin' cold, their proper response should not be, "Why is it so cold, Momma? Why isn't it warm?" It's January, it's winter, it's going to be cold. I am not the great and powerful Oz, but pay no attention to the man behind the curtain anyway.

Bless His Heart ... And My Heart, Too

Daughter 1 had decided to fry chicken on her night to cook. More specifically, she was going to fry drumsticks because, aside from nuggets, there's really not much else to a chicken, right? And despite my mad grocery-list-making skillz, we had no oil in the house in which we could fry chicken. This meant that in the middle of the week, I had to go to Hellmart. (PS--I am using a photo from Walmart's Flickr Creative Commons' stream. I'm still calling it Hellmart, though.)

I dropped Daughter 1 off at home after school and headed back out to Hellmart in the middle of the afternoon. As soon as I pulled into the parking lot, I spotted Mr. W coming from the store. I watched him for a while waiting for a primo spot to open up, and it was very clear that Mr. W couldn't find his car.

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Bless his heart. Our family used to attend church with Mr. W, who has just celebrated his 90-something-th birthday. He's a veteran pilot, whose late wife was also a member of the Air Force along side of him. When they finished their tours, they settled down, had children, and Mr. W continued flying commercially until his retirement. At that time Mr. and Mrs. W traveled with their trailer seeing the parts of our country they'd yet to see until Mrs. W's health warranted that they settle down. They settled in our small town about fifteen or so years ago.

Mr. W is a sweet, sweet man. He never remarried after his wife died, and he doted on our kiddos. My heart broke a little bit to see his fragile frame wandering aimlessly in the Hellmart parking lot. I pulled into my spot and decided to go find Mr. W's car first. I wasn't sure if he'd remember me, and I thought it'd be smarter to find his car and then lead him to it. I quickly found his white Ford, complete with his specialty plate on the front. Then I wandered the five aisles over to Mr. W to take him to his car.

I'm honestly not sure if he remembered me or not, but as I stated earlier, he's a very sweet man. When I approached him and told him I knew where his car was, he offered his arm to me as I led him to his car. He thanked me profusely. I assured him that I lost my car in the parking lot all the time. He got into his car and left.

With a lump in my throat, I silently prayed for two things: First, I wanted to be as independent as Mr. W when I was his age and second, I always wanted to be surrounded by people like me--helpful, beautiful, smart.

Then, I set out to find my own car. I walked up and down the aisles until I finally remembered that I was not in the RAV. I was in the truck. And then I walked up and down the aisles (again) until I found the truck. I smiled at the irony as I drove home.

"Guess who I saw," I called out to Daughter 1 when I walked through the door.

"Who?"

"Mr. W. Bless his heart. He had lost his car in the Hellmart parking lot."

"Aww," my sweet girl sighed. "Did you get the oil for my chicken?"

When I went back to Hellmart to get the oil, I made sure to notice what aisle I parked on. Bless my heart, too.

Maybe Spooky or Maybe Not

"Momma," Daughter 1 asked, "Have you ever played with a Ouija board?"

Hmm ... good question, "I think I did."

"You think you did?" she fired back.

"Wait," I said, "Maybe I didn't."

She just stared at me as I reached back into the deep and forgotten areas of my memory and tried to remember if I ever did.

I grew up in the day when Ouija boards were found right next to the Monopoly and Battleship games in closets all over America. It wasn't considered, by mainstream America, to be an evil device or portal to the dead. It was, as the box clearly states, for entertainment purposes only.

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"You know," I said, "I can't remember if I played with one or not."

She nodded her head, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

But that wasn't it. I wanted to tell her, but I really couldn't remember. It seems like there was this one time when I was out visiting a friend who lived west of town. Her parents were working one Saturday, and we were stuck at home with a whole night of HBO. We talked about playing the Ouija board but argued about whether we would contact the ghost of Elvis or the ghost of John Lennon and decided instead to watch the movie Airplane!.

"I want to tell you," I shot back, "just let me think for a minute."

I vaguely remembered staying with a friend one Friday night and sneaking into her parents' bedroom after they were asleep. My friend just knew that they had a Ouija board in their closet. They did not have a Ouija board in their closet. We didn't find the Quija board; instead, we found some other items in their closet that were for entertainment purposes only. We opted to quickly retreat back to her bedroom and ponder exactly how and for what kind of entertainment those other items were used.

"Really, Momma, it's alright. I've kinda lost interest anyway."

"No ... now, give me a second to think ... "

Had I ever played with a Oujia board? Had I played with it, had a bad experience and blocked it? Had I played with it, had a bad experience and been robbed of my memory as a payment for other-worldly services? Surely if I had ever played with it, I would have remembered it, right?

"I don't think I ever played with it," I finally said definitively.

"Fine. Whatever," Daughter 1 sighed.

"Why do you ask?" I implored. "Do you have questions about spirits or something like that?" I was ready for a deep spiritual conversation with my first born.

"Nah," she said, "I'll probably never play with it. Even if you weren't too cheap to buy it, you'd obviously never remember to get it anyway."

She's probably right.

Fine Print Disclaimer: I do believe that Ouija boards are for entertainment only. Please don't write me hate mail or comments about how I will probably be going to hell because I may or may not have played with a Ouija board when I was younger. First off, I believe that hell is here on earth--don't believe me? Ask any child who is living in Syria or has gone to bed hungry every night for the past few days or weeks or even months. Secondly, if I do end up going to hell, it won't be because of a board game. It will be because I lied in this blog post. We didn't watch Airplane!, we then watched Porky's. And then Fast Times At Ridgemont High. It was because of those two movies that I figured out exactly what those items were in my friend's parents' closet.

Proof #526 That I Have Momma Brain

The Daughters and I decided to head to the big shopping mecca just south of us. Since it was a combined back-to-school slash Christmas shopping trip, I joked and said, "I wonder if 94.1 is playing Christmas music yet." Last year, they started playing it very early, and, as a result, I started listening to Christmas music very early. Sadly, they were not playing Christmas music; instead, they were playing 80s music. It's as if 94.1 were trying to make up for their lack of Christmas music.