Tim wossisname Healey gives an incisive you-know-what about thingummyjig...
The first time I put the Marmite in the fridge it was like an electric
shock. What? Am I losing it? I can't believe I just did that!
But that was years ago. Maybe it’s parenthood, or maybe it’s premature
senility but me and losing it are old friends these days. The Americans call it 'a senior moment'. A moment when the senior citizen just temporarily, you know, loses it. But I’m in my prime for crying out loud. Yet it happens all the time.
Too much to think about, that’s my excuse. Our brains simply weren’t built for the freight of information and stress generated by modern life. Sometimes, in conversation, I am thinking so hard about the road tax, the insurance, the mortgage or the MOT that I can’t remember simple words. Like pavement. Or wheelbarrow. I go "pass me the er, you know. You know. Flat at the bottom. Two parts to it. Top part’s got a handle."
"Teacup, Dad?"
"Teacup, you fool, of course. What did you think I meant!"
Well, I’m learning to live with the new me. I sometimes think it’s actually a rather spiritual thing I’m attaining, a sort of Buddhist detachment from the world of material things….. I become perhaps truly a Senior Man, more centred upon myself and less upon the illusory world. Maybe it is in just such a mood of detachment that the sage at the end of his long pilgrimage through life, ascends on a magic oojamaflip to, um, to celestial, you know, thingummy.
