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My mind is lost, and circuitous confusion has been found.

I think I wrote about this before, (and that’s the problem, I can’t remember) but this combined conundrum within my brain is proving to be a stubborn force, and it’s gotten so much more challenging lately that it’s affecting my tiny, little life in tiny, little ways. I scramble daily to find the correct words for a multitude of vocabulary applications, try to remember where my Preparation H is and what it’s used for, and can never remember my age, but more times than not, I am stymied.

Please engrave that on my urn when I die: She Was Perpetually Stymied.

The latest brain fart: I grabbed someone else’s cart while gallivanting through The Mart yesterday. My brain is so scrambled, I didn’t realize the cart was not mine until I got to the checkout. I apparently assumed I stepped into an alternate universe where I’d wear Grinch pajama pants, three push-up bras and a box of feminine hygiene products I haven’t needed since 2013. That poor sap who has my cart is going to have a seizure when she checks out my Benefiber, MiraLAX, calcium tablets, Depends and four bottles of Advil PM. Sigh. I abandoned the misappropriated goods, flung myself outside and spent the next 25 minutes trying to find my car. It had evaporated. I’d been carjacked! I called Nancy, apoplectic, and he responded calmly: “Maria. You took my car today.” Heh. That’s right! Silly, silly blonde Maria.

Last week, one of my dogs left a spot on my white comforter. You know what I mean: a skid mark. So disgusting. So, I yanked it (the comforter, not the dog) off the bed and flew to the laundromat. I’ve honestly not been to a laundromat since college, and that was only to “borrow” a cart with which I made my friend push me home from a party. Good times.

At any rate, I threw in a quart of detergent, deposited roughly $43 in quarters into the hungry slots and pushed start. There it goes! Round and round and…what the hell? There was no water. I picked the one broken washer in the whole joint. I looked around in disgust for someone with whom I could share my annoyance. A lovely older man toddled over to me and said, almost sadly, “Oh, honey. That right there is a dryer. Not a washer. A dryer.” My God. Apologies to whomever caught that dryer, post-Maria. I’m so sorry there was Tide marbling your clean clothes. On the plus side, whomever tagged it got three hours of free drying time.

Then came the worst episode of befuddlement yet, and the one which upset me so much, I cried. I lost my wedding band and it has broken my heart. (I told you I had one). Nancy and I picked it out when we were poor pre-newlyweds, living in California. We purchased it for $85 on layaway in a second-hand store in Sepulveda and I cherished it. It’s gone, like my gray matter. And thank God Nancy doesn’t read this column because I haven’t told him yet. DO NOT TELL HIM! I must wait for the right time and it involves beer, football and chicken wings.

Dear Santa: I’ve been sort-of good this year. Okay. Not at all good. But all I want for Christmas is a new cerebellum. Surely you owe me from Christmas 1974 when all I received was a birdhouse, underwear and a box of Band-Aids. Just leave it under the tree, next to the Preparation H. Thanks.

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Life Deconstructed

Maria Jiunta Heck

Maria Jiunta Heck, of West Pittston, is a mother of three and a business owner who lives to dissect the minutiae of life. Send Maria an email at [email protected].