Not all is lost for those who wander

I made myself a fine sack lunch the other day. Turkey sandwich. Carrots. Peach yogurt. And fresh strawberries. Packed it up. Put it in the refrigerator until I was ready to leave for work.

Boy, was I hungry about 11:30 a.m. Which is when I realized that my lunch was still cooling its jets in the fridge at home.

I regret to say this is not the first time this has happened.

It's not an emergency, of course. You just walk down the street, plunk down a few bucks and buy a lunch someone else has made. And look at the bright side: I already had a lunch made for the following day.

You might think, poor Sam, the boy is losing it. His memory is going.

I reject that notion.

Here's my defense:

This has been going on for 30 years.

A case in point: My wife and I used to get by with just one car. I'd often ride the city bus to work in the morning. On rare occasions, I would drive the car. However, on one of those rare occasions, I simply took the bus home as usual. When I arrived home, my wife wondered where the car was. I took the next bus downtown to retrieve the car.

I regret to say that happened more than once.

And, yes, I'll admit that I have gone down to the basement for something, then stood there staring at the canning jars and the paint cans and the Duluth packs, thinking, "Now, what was it I came here for?"

There is the well-known story of the woman who did the same thing frequently and kept a stack of canned corn in the basement. When she couldn't remember what she had come for, she'd just grab a can of corn and head back upstairs. Her trip wasn't wasted. We don't eat much canned corn, so I usually just walk back up to the kitchen and await enlightenment.

I offer more in my defense. I have never forgotten my wife's birthday or our anniversary. I rarely lose my wallet for more than a few minutes. I hardly ever lose my keys.

And only once in all our child-rearing years did I forget to pick up our son at day care. Not bad, huh? Once.

There is the name-recognition issue that seems more prevalent than it once was, in which you see a casual acquaintance and can't call up his or her name immediately. But I can assure you, if I see you in Aisle 4 at the grocery store, I'll have remembered your name by Aisle 6, no problem.

Although by that point, I may have forgotten what I was supposed to pick up at the store. Hey, how about this canned corn?

I swear this is a hard-drive issue, not a memory issue. My hard-drive is overloaded with important details such as the starting line-up for the 1958 New York Yankees and what color tube jigs work for pre-spawn smallmouth bass fishing. If I could just add a couple gigs of gray matter, I'd be good as new.

Now I remember what I was looking for at the store. Ginkgo biloba pills.

Maybe next time.

SAM COOK is a Duluth News Tribune columnist and outdoors writer. Reach him at (218) 723-5332 or scook@duluthnews.com .