Butternut squash left on the radiator? Put the washing out
‘There’s only two things wrong with me,’ as I remind my kids on a regular basis. ‘One, I’ve got a terrible memory. And two… I’ve got a terrible memory.’ It’s a joke that never ceases to amuse. Or, more accurately, it’s a joke that never ceases to amuse me. As I get older, however, it’s becoming less of a joke and more of a disturbing reality.
My conversations are stunted by my lack of recall. My method of retrieving the names of forgotten actors/former-classmates/ sons is to go through the alphabet in the hope a letter jogs the memory. Great if my forgotten actor is (A) Alan Alda, but the conversation doesn’t half drag if it’s (Z) Anthony Zerbe. He rarely gets an outing unless I’m railing against the movie I Am Legend. Zerbe didn’t appear in that movie, but in an earlier version of the novel I Am Legend called The Omega Man, starring (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H…) Charlton Heston. My dislike of I Am Legend, starring
Will Smith, is that its Hollywood ending rewrites the ending of the novel. So what? I hear you cry. Hollywood does it all the time. Yes, but the title of the book is the punchline of the novel. The movie ending renders the title meaningless. Read the book, watch the movie, and come back to me on this one.
In the meanwhile, my memory failings and laborious alphabet retrieval system make me glad that Zerbe didn’t star alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger. When it comes to remembering tasks about the home my memory is equally fallible. A month ago, I thought
I’d cracked it. With a butternut squash! This odd-shaped vegetable appeared in our fruit bowl and became my aide-memoire (which is French for ‘a thingamajig to help you remember stuff ’ as Shakespeare once said). If I was asked to remember to put the washing out, I’d leave the butternut squash outside the fruit bowl. Two hours later… ‘What’s that butternut squash doing on the radiator? Ah yes, I must put the washing out.’ Brilliant. It worked for a fortnight. Butternut squash on the window sill? Need to get that ironing done. Butternut squash on the settee? Pay the window cleaner.
It fell through when I spotted the butternut squash on the kitchen table. Make the bed? But the bed’s made. I left the butternut squash on the coffee table to remind me. I’d forgotten why I’d now left it on the kitchen table. Aargh. Turns out it was on the kitchen table to remind me to eat it, which we duly did in a risotto that night. Or was it a soup?