The dreaded hand of… what’s it called?

I WAS waiting at the traffic lights yesterday. They were red.

I was in my car. I mention this because under the circumstances I might have been in a home. I was certainly in trouble.

I forgot what I was supposed to do next.

It was a fleeting moment of wild panic in which I didn’t dare focus too hard in case I discovered I’d forgotten my name, too.

Luckily, as they turned green, it all came back to me. Otherwise I might still be there, beaten senseless by a long line of deranged road ragers.

But for a moment I felt the cold hand of the future, sinister and foreboding, tapping on my shoulder. It was holding a sickle and an egg timer.

I should put it behind me, even though it’s a glimpse of the future, because it might be years yet before it gets serious. Before, for example, I have to get out of the car and ask the bloke behind me what I’m supposed to do next.

It’s like when Aunt Ethel came visiting. She didn’t live very close, but on those nightmare occasions when she did visit it reminded us that she could, whenever she liked, at a moment’s notice.

Dementia is obviously a lot like Aunt Ethel, and if you’d met her you’d know this is truer than you think.

Is it normal? Am I being taken over by beings from another dimension? Or has my brain started dissolving?

That’s what they used to say – that your brain cells started dying from age 35 and it was all downhill from there. But now there’s new research that says we’re getting smarter as we get older. The brain notices its own weight loss and finds new ways of reading the scales.

Apparently the bits that fall off are the bits that govern short-term memory.

Oh good. That’s all right then. It means I won’t have those senior moments at the lights because I’ll still be at home looking for my car keys.

Of course, what they never tell you in their bold theories about the human brain is how long ‘short-term’ is.

I mean… will I forget everything that happened last week? Last month? Last year?

And will short-term eventually become long-term?

That is, if I can’t remember where the car keys are because of short-term memory loss, could it come back to me in a month, or a year, when long-term memory kicks in.

I can manage without the car keys. But what if I’m… let’s say… in the lavatory. And I can’t remember why.

By the time long-term memory catches up with me I’ll be very, very embarrassed.

Am I worried? Of course I’m worried! It’s not like those silly moments when the right, you know… thingummy…wotsit… isn’t on the tip of your tongue when you need it. Word.

The soft underbelly of my mortality has suddenly been exposed. I am losing my… you know… small round things, made of glass…

I’m certain of it, sure as my name’s… er…