This dreaded disease has challenged the lives of baby boomer women across the land! I, myself, frequently suffer from the affects of AAADD (Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder). So, to avoid the daily ravages of this debilitating malady, you’ll want to be aware and take the necessary precautions by reading the following ways the disease typically manifests for me:
I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.
But as I start toward the garage, I notice some mail that I’d left on the porch table. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I place my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first…
But then I think: since I’m going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Pepsi I’d been drinking. I’m going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Pepsi aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over.
The Pepsi is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye–they need water. I put the Pepsi on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to water the flowers.
I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I’ll be looking for the remote, but I won’t remember that it’s on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers.
I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then, I start down the hallway trying to remember where the heck I was going and what I was planning to do.
By the end of the day…
- The car isn’t washed
- The bills aren’t paid
- There is a warm can of Pepsi sitting on the counter
- The flowers don’t have enough water,
- There is still only 1 check in my checkbook,
- I can’t find the remote,
- I can’t find my glasses,
- And I don’t remember what I did with the car keys
But what surprises me the most is that I know I’ve been busy all day. I’m really tired, yet not a single thing on my to-do list got done!
Sound familiar? If so, you might be a fellow AAADD sufferer. There’s no known cure but a sense of humor and a feisty outlook do help. So if you forget everything else, just remember to laugh at least once every day–at our age, a hearty chuckle should be at the top of everyone’s to-do list!
Shelley O. says
Thank you for the laugh! You are right — a sense of humor is the best treatment for this common condition. I found myself wondering if I was on a hidden camera — how else did you know the daily details of my life so well?