NORMAN — Let’s face it folks, there is too much going on in our lives on a daily basis. Add to that the planning, shopping, decorating, entertaining and travel associated with the Christmas Holidays and you have a formula for strange happenings.
If you even contemplate doubting any part of the aforementioned statement, forget about it.
Do you have days when you misplace your brain and its entire contents or at least it seems so? That admission would make you are a card carrying member of this ever-widening group. Please feel somewhat comforted in knowing that this disconcerting affliction is particularly common during the various big holidays and tends to recede afterwards, sometimes. For want of a better moniker, we could call it the “Misplaced Brain Syndrome.”
Permit me to share a few examples.
A business acquaintance was hurrying to her truck, talking on her cell phone and juggling an armload of stuff. Since we all tend to “curl” around the cell phone when we talk, her head was down when she opened the truck door and she walked into the edge of the door. Consequently, she spent the rest of the day explaining the new dent cum bump in her forehead.
This is a perfectly understandable occurrence, if you ask the woman who regularly slams her desk drawer on some part of her hand. It is an unpleasant yet predictable fact that multitasking and lack of attention breeds boo boos.
During the annual physical, the doctor asked if she took a baby aspirin every day. When the answer was in the negative, he recommended taking one at least twice a week. What the poor fellow does not seem to comprehend is that one of the hazards of working in an office is getting stealth paper cuts.
Can this be an instance of Misplaced Brain Syndrome? Let’s apply the test. Is it due to haste or inattentiveness to the task at hand? If either applies, then your paper cut is due to Misplaced Brain Syndrome.
Some folks get such cuts on places that heal quickly like a finger or the tip of the nose. However, yours truly acquires them in the webbing between the thumb and first finger. As a result, every time the hand moves, the cut reopens and blood gushes forth. In other words, I bleed “like a stuck pig.” However, never having been near a pig when it was stuck, skewered or perforated the comparison is meaningless, unless the pig happens to bleed like an oil well gusher.
Folks who are periodically afflicted with the Misplaced Brain Syndrome also will drive past the exit to go home. Oddly enough, they never pass the exit to go to work. I guess that means we are well conditioned gerbils.
On a recent morning, I awoke to the muscle-twisting fun of a cramp in my calf. After writhing in pain for what seemed an eternity, I managed to get out of bed and found that standing eased the agony. Therefore, with my brain conveniently forgotten on the nightstand, I concluded that a short (two-mile run on the treadmill) was what the cramp needed. The run was terrific, but the increasing limp with which I walk is not.
Walking on a flat surface like the office floor is manageable, barely. However, walking up and down the stairs (because I’m too stubborn to use the elevator and because I think I’m slowing working out the kinks) is unsightly and pure agony. Not even a trip to the physical therapist is hurrying up the healing process.
So now, my temporary nickname is “Chester” as in the gimpy guy from the old television western “Gunsmoke.”
Faced with the reality of the Misplaced Brain Syndrome, one can only hope for a better and more sensible New Year.
Elizabeth is an author and freelance writer. Visit her website www.elizabethcowan.com. Check out her new novel, “The Dionysus Connection” on Amazon.
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