Disastrous Mistake

I'll be the first to admit that I'm getting old.

Aches, pains and sniffles take longer to throw off, and what little hair I've got left is almost all white.

I can't force my bladder to hold the waste products of the 8 litres of beer like I used to.

Actually I can barely force it to hold the products of a cup of tea most days.

But I accept all this.

It's part of life, and I do get some compensation.

I get offered seats in buses.  Little boys run screaming from my scarred and wrinkled visage.  Dogs cower.  Policemen (God, aren't they getting young) show a modicum of respect before breathalysing me.


There must be something about me.  I'm a careful driver, no accidents in over 15 years ,apart from the incident with the concrete bollard. 
I ask you, what idiot designs a bollard  that doesn't have high intensity blue flashing light attached.?

Anyone could have missed it. 

It was only 1.5 metres high. 

I tell you, I blame the designer.  However I digress.

I always get stopped by cops and asked for a breath sample.  I don't weave all over the road, I don't (really) break the speed limit, I don't throw empty bottles of whisky out of the windows, I don't drive naked with bits of my anatomy dangling from the window (apart from that one time in Germany) so I don't know why they stop me, but they do.

How did they know?

Of all the aspects of rapidly approaching ancientness, the one that really pisses me of are the memory lapses.

I used to have a good memory, and in most instances I still do.

I can vividly remember the incident of the collapsing bed in Singapore.

I can remember the first science fiction book I bought in Newquay, Cornwall over 50 years ago.

I can remember throwing up (after about 3 whiskies, 4 rum and blackcurrants, and a very large Jagermiester) over the roof of an ex-SS barracks in Germany, over 40 years ago.

I can remember a holiday in Crete with 2 mates, where our consumption of Ouzo and Moussaka is is spoken of in a hushed whisper, as of a legend of old, and that was over 30 years ago.

They did what?

I can remember vividly (even after the internal cranial application of a wire brush and Dettol) the tales told to me by a Lesbian social worker/student, of her desperate search for a man good enough to convert her back to heterosexuality.  This was especially vivid as she had just finished recounting the explanation of why she was wearing a neck brace.  The explanation involved a detailed and exceedingly graphic account of her evening encounter with another Lesbian social worker. 

Pilchards.
Now you know.

It included words like: "Thigh muscles that could crack Walnuts", "Involuntary muscle spasm", "Labia the size of Pilchards" (I had to open a can to check this) "Contortions more suited to a double-jointed seal, following the teachings of the Marquis D' Sade"
That was over 20 years ago, and I still wake up screaming some nights.  My Beloved says I'm screaming "More, More" but I'll deny it with my last breath.

I can remember just 14 years ago, when, just before I flew out to Godzone (New Zealand), I attempted to teach a Religious Studies class I was temporarily asked to cover.  The horrified and terrified looks on the little kiddies faces when I began to recount the details of a Black Mass will stay with me forever.  And forever warm the cockles of my heart.

I can remember in exquisite detail the first time I arrived in NZ.  I flew into Wellington Airport.  I was so looking forward to working in this South Pacific Paradise.

So I was a little concerned to see the way the plane was being blown all over the place by some really nasty winds.  After we landed (sideways) and got through customs and biosecurity (HINT:  Never even try to smuggle a deadly orange into NZ.. I think they shoot you) we exited into the main concourse.  The first Kiwi I saw was standing barefoot. He was wearing a tatty black singlet and a pair of shorts even more disreputable than my trusty Army shorts currently residing in my suitcase.(How they ever got through biosecurity I'll never know).

Typical Kiwi dress code

 "I could get to like this place" I thought.  Then I saw out the windows my first sight of horizontal rain.  Not just the rain was going horizontal.  At least three airport baggage trolleys, a couple of wastebaskets, and I could have sworn , a bemused sheep, went flying past.

So how is it that if I can remember all these little details, I forget what the hell I'm supposed to be teaching my class.

Complete Blank © TSB

I can be standing at the board, about to go onto the next point, and...
And all is blank.  The facts and important features of Database I was about to explain had vanished form my mind like the way an offspring vanishes when anyone mentions "washing up"

But that is not the worst.

This morning I forgot it was my wife's our wedding anniversary.


Pray for me.

I'm f*cked.