Getting old and stupid

[Steve Maskery]

I'm making this ^^&*(*&^ kitchen and getting right (*&^%^&* off about it. There hasn't been much progress this last couple of weeks as life has got in the way, but I distinctly remember, a couple of weeks ago, feeling slightly relieved that I didn't have to cut up any more MFC or MDF for a while. All the panels were cut for the next phase of the installation (two rows of wall cabinets, six cabinets, twelve sides in total).

Yesterday I decided to do a bit more and started to assemble these wall cabinets. I had 12 top panels, 12 bottoms, but only 7 sides. What? Why only 7, It's an odd number in every sense. But I could find only 7. So I assembled the first cabinet, which took longer than it should have done to get square, and the second. Something was wrong, and this morning I discovered what it was. One of the top panels was not square and the cabinet simply wouldn't work. So I knocked it apart, hoping to salvage it. But my joinery, whilst not as accurate as it should be, is very robut, and I simply wrecked the cabinet. Heigh-ho, well I'd got to cut 5 more panels, an extra 2 isn't going to make much difference.

So today I've spent a few hours lugging panels of MFC from one barn to another, cutting 6 panels, plus one from MRMDF (which meant cutting into a new sheet), sizing them, edging them and grooving for a back panel. All done and, I think, this time all square.

By 2.30 I'd had enough and decided to mow the lawn, just for something different to do. So I went to get the mower out and what was staring me in the face? A drying rack with 5 panels on it all edged and primed.

Several hours work and two boards of material wasted.

I go into that barn pretty much every day, and it wasn't in some dark hidden corner, it was just inside the door, I had to move it out of the way to get to the mower. I sometimes do wonder (and I know that Sheila does) if I am beginning to lose mental faculty. Is this what the future has in store?


S

 

[Spectric]

if I am beginning to lose mental faculty. Is this what the future has in store?

No I don't think so, if we are all honest it happens to many of us because we just try and overwork our brains and have so much going on it just causes confusion and is not a medical condition or pre emptive of one.

 

[Lurker]

I think we all do it.
I wanted something last week ( can’t remember now what it was!!!).
Lying in bed that morning I thought I had a clear memory as to were it was.
As soon as I was up and about, I went to seek it out.
No sign!
Rootled about in likely places and couldn’t find it. Went in the house chuntering about my memory but decided it would turn up eventually and had a cup of coffee.
I have an old high gloss kitchen cabinet door in the workshop where I write reminder notes with one of those dry maker pens for white boards so wrote myself a reminder.
Turned around to get on with something else and there was the damn thing I had been looking for.
Then I remembered I had put it there two days before to remind me to do the job that I needed it for.

 

[Lons]

Wot he said but I hate to tell you it will only get worse Steve.

 

[Malc2098]

I can forget what I was going to Google between the lounge and the study.

 

[DaveL]

Malc,
You are not alone

 

[Cabinetman]

I can forget what I was going to Google between the lounge and the study.

There’s a reason for that, I read about it recently, it’s to do with the way our brains get ready for a dangerous situation and those often occur after crossing from one place to another ie through a doorway, the brain clears itself in readiness.
So no you’re not going soft lol.

 

[RogerS]

I think we all do it.
I wanted something last week ( can’t remember now what it was!!!).
Lying in bed that morning I thought I had a clear memory as to were it was.
As soon as I was up and about, I went to seek it out.
No sign!
Rootled about in likely places and couldn’t find it. Went in the house chuntering about my memory but decided it would turn up eventually and had a cup of coffee.
I have an old high gloss kitchen cabinet door in the workshop where I write reminder notes with one of those dry maker pens for white boards so wrote myself a reminder.
Turned around to get on with something else and there was the damn thing I had been looking for.
Then I remembered I had put it there two days before to remind me to do the job that I needed it for.

I recall reading about a tip in circumstances like this and that is to continually say or think the name of the article while you are looking. Further research needed. Now where was I?

 

[RogerS]

That reminds me. I bought a load of tile cement and primer a month ago. I have no idea where I put the primer. Every place is in disarray and both LOML and I spend most of our time moving stuff from A to B in order to find C or D only to then realise a day or so later that we've mislaid A and B and so the cycle continues.

 

[Malc2098]

I think this bit is serious to this conversation, but when I had to learn great bits of law and definitions etc, and the system of car control, what is a hazard, the rules of braking etc., we were always taught to read and repeat it out loud to ourselves, because what one says and what one reads, even if they are the same thing, go into different parts of the brain, and in many cases, not everyone, the read out loud bit stays longer in the memory.

 

[Lurker]

Used to work in the nuclear industry there was a great emphasis on what you say Malc.
I still use some techniques.
If you were to watch me fuel a car, it goes like this.
Put nozzle in the filler
Point to the nozzle grade (eg E10)
Then point to the grade written on the inside of the cover of the filler.
Whilst saying petrol ( very quietly!) as I point.

I’m well past the age where I care what bystanders might think about this.

 

[Malc2098]

Used to work in the nuclear industry there was a great emphasis on what you say Malc.
I still use some techniques.
If you were to watch me fuel a car, it goes like this.
Put nozzle in the filler
Point to the nozzle grade (eg E10)
Then point to the grade written on the inside of the cover of the filler.
Whilst saying petrol ( very quietly!) as I point.

I’m well past the age where I care what bystanders might think about this.

I only put a laugh emoji 'cos I do the same!

 

[Bod1]

Welcome to my world.

Bod1.

 

[fuse]

Im a few months shy of sixty and all this is pretty tame compared with the mental shenanigans my brain gets upto.
The voices just cheer it on....

 

[Windows]

I’m increasingly replacing reliance on short term memory with procedures that can be called up from long term memory. For example, if I make two cups of coffee, can I remember which cup contains caffeine and which is decaff by the time I have to deliver them? Well, most of the time I can, but instead of having to, I always make and deliver the decaff first before even starting on the caffeinated coffee. Can’t go wrong that way.

 

[fuse]

Lost my car keys,late for work,increasing panic.

Just STOP!
Sit down ,cup of tea,think about where I last held them.

Make tea ,open fridge for the milk.
They were at least nicely chilled.
WTF ,as the kids say.

 

[Cabinetman]

Lost my car keys,late for work,increasing panic.

Just STOP!
Sit down ,cup of tea,think about where I last held them.

Make tea ,open fridge for the milk.
They were at least nicely chilled.
WTF ,as the kids say.

I tried putting the car keys in the fridge to remind me to take milk to work, hopeless as the battery must have been a bit low and the remote didn’t work lol.

 

[Dr.Al]

I came downstairs one morning to make breakfast and found the muesli in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard

 

[AndyT]

It must have been the cat playing tricks on you!

 

[Doug71]

A couple of weeks ago I spent 2 hours looking for my van keys, I was really starting to panic as I'd been through everything including all my pockets, bins etc (I had checked the fridge).

My mother popped round and asked why I wasn't at work and why I looked so stressed, I told her I'd lost my van keys, she said "Aren't they there" pointing to the key rack I use..........

Turns out I'd hung my van keys on the hook that my car keys go on just two inches to the right of where they should be, why would I look there!

 

[John Brown]

I've started turning(or trying to turn)mortice lock keys the wrong way, just in the last couple of months. Very strange..

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

Steve, we lose brain cells every day; ergo, we are stupider/less able to retain memory every day. We are also under a great deal more stimuli than our forefathers, all of them vying for that incrementally smaller mental space, so some at some point our brains just 'jettison' items as there is no room to continue processing/retaining them . At 70 I am familiar with the scenarios above, and I know they will continue - possibly in extremis until my last breath. So...counter attack. I find endlessly making lists helps. I have a master list, onto which the things that cannot be ducked go. Then, I have a "DO IT NOW!!" list for the things that are time-sensitive and MUST be done TODAY. Every morning, during first caffeine fix, I review the D.I.N. list and apportion a sequence (and, if possible, a time limit) to it. If I don't get the D.I.N. list done by end of day, it couldn't have been done; I'm human.

As for leaving things in daft places, Yes, Yes, Yes, a total and utter bugbear. Presently, I have 'lost' a load of ironing. How do you do that in a small bungalow ? Gawd alone knows, but yours truly accomplished it.

As to keys, kitchen implements, that pound of salmon you got for a special tea and is now in its six day of hiding...the only way that works is to be rigid and ALWAYS PLACE AN ITEM IN THE SPACE ALLOTED TO IT. If you get casual (absent-minded) and 'put it down for a second', it will immediately take lessons from Lord Lucan and disappear off the face of the earth....The salmon will eventually, by virtue of biochemical decomposition, signal its location, but most inanimate objects are quite content to assume catatonia and be perfectly unhelpful. To paraphrase Nicolas Cage in one of his (we wish) more forgettable roles: "Do naht put the bunny dahn!" - unless its into its hutch.

Is this system perfect? Far from it, but it does at least reduce - a tad - the number of items that migrate soundlessly, invisibly, with huge success, to the Twilight Zone (located in your case, in that barn).

Sam

 

[DaveL]

Of course most of my stuff moves about while I am not looking, I blame the holes in the space tome continuum, time travel and teleportation apparently works but the researchers can't prove it.

 

[Doug]

I wondering if this is because I don’t usually shower in the day time but yesterday the good lady wife suggested we went to a couple of nurseries in the afternoon so as I was mucky from the mornings toils I went for a shower.

It was only after I’d been in the shower a few moments & my vision began to fog that I realised I’d still got my glasses on, I’ve never done this in the near on 20 years I’ve been wearing glasses, naturally my wife thinks I’m loosing the plot.

This isn’t helped by the fact that last week after 45 years of using power tools I had my first fairly serious accident with one, on the lighter side bless here heart she has been searching the the internet this weekend & announced yesterday that I was to buy a Saw Stop, the fact my accident didn’t happen on a table saw seems to be irrelevant

 

[Steve Maskery]

When I lived near Mansfield, I used to go to the Folk Club.
One Monday I set off, but something didn't feel right. I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was definitely a little problem. Only when I started to get out of the car did I realise I still had my slippers on.
Great hilarity ensued.
S

 

[AndyP]

Forgetting my pin number after loading a trolley full of groceries did it for me. Normally the fingers just follow a pattern rather than me even thinking about the number. I tried 3 times, card then locked of course. Problem here is one cannot change the pin number that the bank sets when they issue the card.

 

[Lons]

............... I have 'lost' a load of ironing. How do you do that in a small bungalow ? Gawd alone knows, but yours truly accomplished it.''''''''''''''''''''

How on earth did you manage that Sam? There's an answer to that problem, just don't do any ironing, that's my wife's solution and she refuses to buy any clothes that need it.

As far as the salmon goes, have you been dog sitting recently? Sometimes a reason especially if they look guilty though our dog looks like that even when she hasn't done anything. Otherwise it's in the workshop or the car most likely...or the oven....microwave....wardrobe....shopping bag ... coat pocket.... Maybe you didn't buy it - I've done that one with things.

I got a nice surprise recently. Sue was taking a bottle of wine as a gift for someone and I fished out a fancy paper carrier bag to put it in, looked inside the bag and there was an Amazon gift card which my son had given me a year past Christmas and I'd forgotten was there

 

[Woodbloke]

Forgetting my pin number after loading a trolley full of groceries did it for me. Normally the fingers just follow a pattern rather than me even thinking about the number. I tried 3 times, card then locked of course. Problem here is one cannot change the pin number that the bank sets when they issue the card.

We both got hacked off to the back teef with wretched PIN numbers so SWIMBO now has all her cards etc with one PIN number and I've done the same thing, which makes life a lot easier at the tills at 8am in the morning at Tesco's when I'm still half asleep. Not being able to change your pin must be a genuine, King sized pita - Rob

 

[Lons]

We both got hacked off to the back teef with wretched PIN numbers so SWIMBO now has all her cards etc with one PIN number and I've done the same thing, which makes life a lot easier at the tills at 8am in the morning at Tesco's when I'm still half asleep. Not being able to change your pin must be a genuine, King sized pita - Rob

Convenient but a bit risky Rob ?

 

[Woodbloke]

Convenient but a bit risky Rob ?

Not really; it's a lot more inconvenient when you're stood at some till in WR or Tesco and can't remember the pin! - Rob

 

[marineboy]

Forgetting my pin number after loading a trolley full of groceries did it for me. Normally the fingers just follow a pattern rather than me even thinking about the number. I tried 3 times, card then locked of course. Problem here is one cannot change the pin number that the bank sets when they issue the card.

I’m sure you can change the PIN at any ATM.

 

[fuse]

Yes you can
Providing you can remember the original one......

Im continually on lockout with my online banking so Ive had to resort to writing the details which is bad enough without then subsequently finding multiple different versions.