It was at noon today when I realized that the pain in my nose had some sort of unconsciously suppressed memory that was only now coming into cognition. It was like a vague sense of de ja vu without the usual little people and peanut butter and yet the pieces were starting to come together to form an actual back story to the ache in my proboscis. Its 3am. I wake up. Waking up at 3am often has that emerging from a 3 week bender sort of feel to it where one barely know their own name and I certainly don’t know where I am or which way is up. There are bad ways to wake up. On a front lawn is one, or with a gf’s elbow in your eye perhaps. With your head wedged between the box spring and your side table is quite another. I found myself completely unable to manipulate my right arm – which I will tentatively say is worse than the others but I don’t want to provoke the sleep gods into throwing caution completely to the wind and coming up with something completely entertaining…

It was hanging there useless like shoe in a tree or the U.N. I tried to move it… nothing. I poked it with the other arm – I couldn’t feel it. Finally I’d puzzled over this appendage development for long enough that some feeling came back. My elbow had come online at last. So I used it – and what happened next, as I was suddenly finding my self recalling at noon… was unfortunate. Feeling had come back but coordination had not so when I utilized this elbow… my entire forearm and hand flopped in my direction and whacked me in the face. I vaguely recall marveling at this occurrence, noted it hurt, checked for blood and passed out again. It would be 9 hours later until I connected my mild pain to the events earlier.

So now as I go again to bed… I am going to try hard to not punch myself in the face in a limp, uncontrollable “epic flail” at 3am. Which seems a ridiculously easy bar for success but recent history suggests that I should embrace the little victories whenever I can!

So I’m going to A&W with a friend. I have a definite hankering for a Mozza burger (no bacon). Overpriced, certainly not up the the standards of The King… and yet I want one. I pull into the parking lot. On the road where I’d turn into the drive through there is a transit bus. Distracted by the bus (always externalize the blame…) I pull into the parking lot just before the drive through lane. Bah! I u-turn…. come back to the road, and then…. turn into the parking lot just after the drive through lane. Double-bah! My friend thought this was amusing, and deemed it a genuine “MikeMoment^TM“. If these are the things that others (and yes, others have…) align with my name… there is trouble ahead.

In case you were wondering, my 3rd attempt at successfully entering the drive through lane was a resounding success!!! 😀

Some will attest that I am already there. I certainly give ample evidence… I forget things. I stop in the middle of a long yet eloquent sentence and get distracted by a random thought about pickles, buttons on my shirt, or molecules of air wafting through the gap in your teeth, or… well… damnit I forget. Sometimes I can already feel sanity slipping away, not overall, but in a few brief moments where I am caused to wonder if my brain is undergoing liquifaction. It gets slippery in there sometimes. In contrast, there are the moments where I believe myself to be in a room full of the insane. I am the lone competent mind among the throng of rabidly caffinated hordes – all having lost their faculties, or what few they were born with. Granted, the latter tends to occur almost exclusively in retail situations. The horror. The horror.

Last week I wandered into the “Real Canadian Superstore”. The name of this store alone makes me wonder sometimes. It is a giant warehouse full of garish lights, bright colors, and all the ambience of a small closet constructed of burning omlettes. However, their prices are good, and I am loathe to pay 5 bucks for a loaf of bread at UnSafeway (TM) when I can get it at RCS for under 2. I am in the 12 items or less lineup. I like linups even more than I like forgetting 2 of the 3 points I just came up to you to chat about, so the 12 items or less line and I get along nicely. Those “other” linups have people who actually buy a lot of things, and I am not one of those people, nor do I want to be behind those people in line. I’ve got the usual items, plus one item that fits into a new thing im trying. Get your usual stuff (and its VERY usual), but get one item with each trip that you have not tried before. This has been largely successful so far, with a few items that have… well, been interesting. So I am standing there in the linup, kicking my basket of loot along in front of me… and am getting annoyed by the old lady behind me. She is one of those people who will stand RIGHT behind you in a linup. You take a step back even slightly, and you collide with your lineup tailgater. I did this a few times accidentally, where I apologized. Then I did it a few more times on purpose, just a slight step back, a collision. This is usual in linups, not rare enough to gather much attention, not to say I understand. I took note that all this lady was buying was 3 jars of pickles. No name brand pickles. Dill.

This is where my jacket comes in.

Next thing I know – she is rubbing the nail of her index finger on my jacket. Right around my left shoulder blade. I turned around, sort of smiled and asked if there was anything on my jacket. She shook her head and gave a big grin. Whatever… I turned back to the line ahead of me. She did it again. Squip! squip!squipsquipsquipsquipsquipsquip… I asked her to stop, at which point she smiled and redoubled her efforts. I asked the woman behind her if she was with her, and alas, the JacketPicker(TM) was acting alone. The woman behind her asked her to leave me alone but alas, this also had no effect. All queries into the behavior resulted in a redoubling of her efforts and a big big smile. Perhaps there is a lesson in that smile – crazy is not necessarily unhappy. So we ignored her. Squip squip squipsquipsquipsquipsquipsquip… Sigh… at least she wasn’t hitting me.

Life has a way of reminding you what you are forgetting. Sometimes it comes in the form of a harsh kick in the ass, sometimes it is gentle. A reminder that Im not really that crazy at all was fairly subtle – Im not picking at other people’s jackets just yet. I do buy pickles though. Dill pickles. Hmmm….