“How can someone forget that they bought a pig!?”

I have to say, on reflection, that my wife had a point. I have started to forget things more and more often, but they’re usually the little things I forget, not the big ones. I’m sure I would have remembered buying a pig.

“Did you let the cat out?” Sue will ask. I have to think very hard before I can say with confidence, “I don’t remember.” One Thursday I forgot to put out the trash, even though I knew it was Thursday and trash day has been Thursday for as long as I can remember, which is about the last three months. I’ve been missing my iPod for nine weeks now. (I bought a new one and still the old one hasn’t shown up.) There’s no counting the times I have walked into a room to get something and forget what it was. I used to be able to remember to put out the trash and to take something out of the freezer for dinner and to let the cat in at the same time. Now it’s one or the other, but not all three and rarely two.

I write a new to-do list every day. Most days, I forget to look at it. Tomorrow I will make a new list starting with everything I forgot to do today. But nowhere on that list does it say, “Tell Sue I bought a pig,” which is why she was so surprised by a message on the machine yesterday announcing: “Your pig is ready, when do you want us to deliver it?”

After reeling off, finger by finger, the long list of stupid things I have ever done by date and day, she announced that this had to be the stupidest. After a little phone tag, it turns out I did not buy a pig – not a whole one at least. I bought a quarter of one.