Apples

Every time I eat a Spartan apple I am reminded of grade school and the frequent "Apple Days" we would have to raise money for the school. I just finished one now and as soon as I took that first bite, I was transported back to those early grades. I find it funny (and by funny I mean cursedly annoying) that the older I get the more my brain remembers the unimportant things and the less it remembers my daughter's teacher's name or license plate number. I just hate not having a memory.

The truth is, I never did learn - or should I say "retain?" - my license plate number. I bore a child so that SHE could be my walking talking post-it note, but I see that she too is afflicted with a memory that centers on the trivial and ignores the important stuff. It was a great disappointment to me when I was trying to teach her by rote what my license plate number was, and she got nowhere with it. Mind you, at four it was a bit much to ask for, I suppose. In the ensuing crying and wailing (by me) at the realization that I now would have to remember stuff for TWO people, I did indeed learn my license plate number (in case I happened to be at a mall and that number was called over the P.A. system because I had, you know, forgotten to turn off my lights). I got new plates shortly thereafter and it was all for naught. I still don't know this one.

As I get older (to ripen like stinky cheese), I notice that I recall things from my childhood with greater and greater clarity and I figure that by the time I get old I will turn into my grandmother, starting every sentence with "when I was a girl...." and pontificating on my now-highly colorful cherished girlhood memories. I won't remember my own name (having a handy little name tag for that purpose and even now I think it's a good idea that everyone wear them NOW), but then at that age I won't have to remember such drivel. I will be forgiven any and all social faux pas because I had managed to traverse all the dangers life throws at me to live to such an advance state of decay.

I can see me taking advantage of this, to the tune of waving a bony granny-arm out the car window, flipping the bird and swearing at other drivers with such off-color language as to render them speechless. I will weave in and out of traffic speeding everywhere I go (much like I do now), not checking for blind spots nor being a good sport and letting others into long time-wasting sssnakey traffic light lineups.

When I am in a nursing home and lose my bodily functions, I will make sure to hold my emissions till the dinner hour where my keeper will have to interrupt his/her repast to change me (I would hope). I will dribble my creamed everything down my stubbled chin on purpose because I can and wink lasciviously at the other inmates' guests and proffer a gentle squeeze to any "package" in my immediate vicinity. Perhaps I will escape to find comfort in the dirtiest of run-down bars and heft a pint or two with like-minded individuals who, seeing my advanced age and feisty spirit, buy me drinks all night long, only to return to "tsks" and "clucks" from my keepers.

These things I will do if I should live that long but at the rate I am going and the zig-zag course I am taking, it is highly unlikely that it will come to pass. Perhaps I should step up the aberrant behavior that I exhibit now, juuust in case Plan A doesn't pan out.