Suffering from AAADD

I was listening to “Car Talk” on National Public Radio the other day; I always listen to “Car Talk,” in the hope that someday I will know more about cars than where the gas pedal is located. And I did once hear something on “Car Talk” that saved me some money. My car kept refusing to start in hot weather, and it turned out — but that’s a whole other story. Let’s see. ... Where was I?

Oh, yes: my condition. I was listening to Click and Clack on “Car Talk” with about half an ear one day when I suddenly heard one of them say that he had A.A.A.D.D. “Oh, yeah?” said his brother. “What’s that?”

“It’s Age-Associated Attention Deficit Disorder,” came the reply. That’s when I really started listening. “Here’s how it works,” he said. (I’m approximating here.) “One morning, after I get dressed, I decide that I’m going to wash my car. So I head for the garage. But on the way through the kitchen I notice that the mail is still on the breakfast table and hasn’t been opened, so I decide to go ahead and take care of that — in which case I might as well have another cup of coffee. But I can’t remember what I did with the cup I had. I go back to the bedroom to see if I left it there, and I find the paper, which I never finished reading, so I know the coffee cup must be around somewhere. Meanwhile, I glance at the paper and notice that there’s a sale on some lawn equipment I need, but all I can read is the headline, because I don’t have my glasses on. So now I start looking for my glasses.

“I find them in the bathroom, along with the coffee cup. So I head back out to the kitchen. But now I’m interested in that lawn-equipment sale, so I decide to call the place and see whether they still have what I want. But first I need to make some more coffee, because someone emptied the pot while I was back in the bedroom. So I make the coffee, call the sale place, find out they have what I’m looking for, and decide to go on over there before I wash the car.

“Only now I can’t find my car keys. Or my coffee cup. All I have is my glasses and the paper. So I go back to the bedroom, and — now this is the worst part — when I get there I can’t remember why I’m there.”

“So what finally happened?” asked his brother. “Did you get the lawn equipment?”

“I didn’t get anything,” he said. “It took me all day to find the car keys. They were in the refrigerator, where I must have put them when I was getting the coffee out. By the end of the day, I still hadn’t washed the car, read the mail, or bought any lawn equipment — and I felt like I’d been working hard all day.”

And if any of that sounds familiar, dear reader, you too may have A.A.A.D.D., in which case, welcome to my world!

Susan Harper is retired, lives in Commerce and volunteers for the Commerce Library Board and the Jackson County Literacy Program.