Back over the winter, a woman called out to me as I was walking across the parking lot of a shopping plaza. A friend and I had been out doing a little pre-holiday purchasing together – we had just left the store and since I don’t hear very well, I didn’t hear my name being called. I would have kept on walking by, no doubt appearing rude, had my friend not alerted me.

Immediately I recognized the woman who had called my name. The first time I had met her was at a workshop on memoirs a number of years ago, where people shared some very intense and personal stories, which resulted in creating some trusting bonds and connections. She is a rather strong writer who disclosed thought provoking and moving narrative. While we don’t live in the same town, we do live in the same county, and so we have run into each other a few times since then while out and about, which always results in brief, pleasant conversation. We are also connected on social media. So here we stood, and as I looked into her familiar, smiling face, I suddenly could not for the life of me remember her name.

This might not have been an issue, but for the fact that my friend was standing there next to me, awaiting an introduction. A few awkward seconds (which felt like an eternity) clicked by before they (gratefully) introduced themselves to each other. Once she said her name (of course, how could I have forgotten?) I shared that I had (rather synchronistically) just received an essay in an email that very morning from the facilitator who had taught our workshop way back when. But when I went to mention the name of our teacher, I could not remember her name either! My brain had just totally frozen, the same way your computer might suddenly freeze and lock up. As I tried to recall the name of the workshop facilitator, I looked at my fellow attendee expectantly, hoping she would fill in the blanks – yet simultaneously, she had the same memory lapse and also could not recall the name either. So we stood there with our mouths open, grasping at threads; “You know, the woman who ran our workshop”, “Yes, it was…. starts with an M?” while we tried to put a name to the clear image of the face in our minds.

Afterwards I actually did look up the teacher’s name…..which did not begin with an M. This dual brain-fart was yet another “senior moment” in a string of increasingly annoying and somewhat disturbing temporary lapses. All three of us stood there, suddenly speechless, until my friend (who had no connection to any of this and became tired of standing out in the cold) indicated she was eager to be on our way, politely prompting us to get going.

You know how it is, right? You walk into the kitchen to get something and then forget why you walked into that room. Of course there are plenty of other things to do in the kitchen, so you get side-tracked into opening the refrigerator or picking up a sponge to wipe the stove. Or maybe you just stand there in the middle of the floor while your mind whirls around trying to remember what task had been at hand moments before. Giving up, you then leave the room, maybe walk back upstairs, only to remember what it was and head back down to the kitchen again. If you are lucky, this scenario might only play out once. It is funny/not funny that a few times I’ve gone up and down the stairs more than once. At best it’s just a case of being distracted. At worst it sets off all sorts of senior-related worry, even though this seems to be a normal aspect of aging.

This phenomenon (I really don’t want to call it an “affliction”) seems to be a common theme with just about every friend or relative I’ve spoken to that is about my age – and even a bit younger. Why did I walk into this room? Where are my glasses? (They are on top of your head). Where are my car keys? (In the last jacket you wore? In your pocket? Still sticking out of the lock in the back door?). Where is my phone? (THIS is the one that is providing the most mileage for me).

I misplace my phone pretty much every day. I lay it down to do something else, wander away from it for a minute, and then – poof – it pulls a Houdini. Because of this, I have unfortunately/disappointingly decided to forgo having a trendy, cool-looking, design-covered, artsy protective case on my phone and have opted instead for a very brightly colored solid one that will stand out every time I lay it down. I realize this is the equivalent of ditzy old women that would put plastic flowers on the antenna of their car so they could find it in a parking lot. I will admit that I have a sticker in a window on each side of my car, only so I can recognize it from all the other cars of that model that look the same. Although these days, all I really have to do is search for the one with the missing fog light, cracked bumper and dents on each corner. But I digress……..

So yes, I misplace my phone pretty much every day at some point – often multiple times a day. Usually it just takes a moment or two where I can retrace my steps and locate it. But occasionally it seems to vanish in thin air…. or hide in plain sight, despite the bright-yet-unartistic case on it. When it comes to a critical impasse, if anyone is available at the moment I will ask them to please call my number to help locate it. But here is where it gets especially tricky.

The phone is connected to my hearing aids, so when someone calls me, it does not ring aloud for anyone else to hear – it only rings in the aids. This means there is no way to pinpoint the actual location of a ringing phone, as it is silent to everyone else. Yet for me, there is this directionless ringing going on in my head, which has me uselessly twirling around in circles like a dog chasing its tail, trying to spot it. The best I can discern from this ridiculous situation is that the phone must not be very far away (like outside in the car) and possibly still in the house. I do have the strobe light set on the phone that will go off when it rings, but if you lay it down the wrong way that is not going to help. And even if the light is face-up, you still have to go from place to place trying to find a flashing light, which is not obvious unless it’s nighttime and you are in the dark. You see where this is going…..

Every time I have any kind of doctor appointment they ask me how much weekly exercise I get. This appears to be a standard doctor appointment question. Without a doubt, the most exercise I accrue is by running up and down the stairs multiple times a day, either looking for my phone or forgetting the reasons why I went up (or down) and doing it all over again. Once upon a time I had one of those knock-off Fitbit pedometers that counted your steps. If I could remember where I last saw it, I might put it back on just so I could tell them at my next appointment about my amazing mileage. There are fifteen stairs in this house. That’s a trip of thirty stairs each time I do it. Multiply that by the ongoing trips up and down them all day and I should have Quads of Steel by now. I honestly don’t understand why I don’t!

To get around this Common Aging Phenomenon, I’m finding there are a few Senior Hacks that can be used. If you have a second device available and they are connected, you can use that to help locate your phone. And then there are tracking tags. About a year ago I had bought one for the dog’s collar, but discovered it was a bit too big for his little self. Having already spent the money, I laughingly thought, “Why not?” and attached it to my keys. For the most part it’s been just some extra dangling junk on the key ring that I’ve forgotten about. I’ve never really had a reason to use it…until about ten days ago. While rushing around to leave for an appointment somewhere, suddenly (of course) my keys were missing. Normally they would only be in one of two places – either hanging on the key rack on the wall, or in a purse. So I did the backtrack. Checked all the pockets, all the purses, took a walk out on The Urban Porch to see if they were sitting outside. Started looking on top of every table and dresser, every counter and chair, in every single room. Nothing. And I was going to be late.

Suddenly, I remembered the dog’s AirTag! Using my phone (which, blessedly, I had not misplaced at that moment) I traveled around following the (not exactly perfect but somewhat helpful) directionals until I actually located them – on the floor by the front door, underneath a pile of shoes. How they ended up there is beyond me, but I can safely say they might not have been found for a few weeks beneath that mess otherwise.

For the most part, up until recently I’ve been averse to certain levels of technology, this being one of them. But now I have to admit, it really is tempting to get about twenty of these gadgets and start attaching them to everything. Find My Car. Find My Purse. Find My Other Shoe.

The other Useful Thing is the key fob for your car. When I park the car in a lot and forget exactly what row I left it in, if you keep hitting the Lock button on the key it will make the lights flash and the horn beep once or twice. Of course I can’t hear the beep unless I am pretty close to it, but the flashing lights have been somewhat helpful at times. And I learned that if you are in a really big parking lot in an airport, it is useful to actually take a photo of where you parked with your phone for future reference. Because if you return in a week, you might not remember and those lots are pretty big. Once upon a time my poor mom had to be driven around a large mall parking structure in a little golf cart by a parking attendant because she couldn’t locate her car. I’m thinking a number of us are not too far away from that possibility.

I will add that these technology hacks cannot always be trusted. For example, instead of the little daily planners we used to use years ago (do they even make those anymore?) all my appointments are stored in my phone calendar now. It is supposed to alert you when an appointment is coming up, and so whenever I’m asked if I would also like an appointment card, I tend to say “No thanks, I’ll just store it in my phone”. But they are not fool-proof. Sometimes if you put in a time, for some reason the phone memory will remember the time of the previous appointment from the same place and revert to that, unbeknownst to you – until you appear at your next appointment at the wrong time. Worse, sometimes you think you put the date in right, but one false move of your fat finger on the screen might mean the date got changed. This has happened to me a few times. I’ve shown up for a medical appointment on the wrong day (after driving over an hour to get to it). Or the wrong time. The worst though was missing the time of a memorial for someone special. I’m not quite over that one yet.

These are not actually things that can be blamed on Senior Moments, they are technology fails – at least as far as I am concerned. I do have a good old fashioned wall calendar to refer to – I just have to remember to write everything down on it – and to take the appointment card when they offer it to you. And maybe, just maybe, tie a string around a finger…….

~*~