Dementia, or ageing

Yesterday afternoon, with the temperature soaring, I got into the car alone reluctantly leaving Jules the dog at home with Fran. He loves the car, but even a rapid transit of the supermarket is unacceptable in this heat.

Half an hour later I was back, parked the car in the garden and put all my little personal stuff, wallets, phone, keys etc. on the passenger seat as usual and closed the gate before opening the house again. Then I went back and opened the hatch and the door of the cage within it. This is Jules’ favourite place once the sun is no longer on the car, it has a very good view of the gate and he takes his early warning system very seriously. Then, because he sometimes braves the sun for a time, I opened both side sliding doors to give a good free flow of any breeze.

Finally I grabbed the bags and then the 6 pack of water bottles from the car in 2 journeys and took them into the house for unloading and distribution.

At 11.30pm after seeing Fran into bed I went to the car to shut it up and retrieve Jules. He refused, he was simply too comfortable and cool, so I left him to it and finished all my other jobs before bed. Then my piercing whistle code brought him running inside. I decided to leave the hatch open on the car, no harm will come to it.

This morning when I got up and opened the house I looked for my phone to switch it on. It was nowhere to be seen, I searched everywhere but just before I went for the house phone to ring my number, I checked the car.

My phone, along with both wallets with all our travelling documents, all the cards and money, plus car keys, were sitting there on the front seat and the hatch of course still wide open. :roll_eyes: :confused:

distraction, more like David… and unusual routine. We are creatures of habit and most at risk of disruption when the normal routine is interrupted.
Your post suggests nothing more :wink:

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I agree with Graham. Also the heat yesterday effects the brain too!

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Just life in hot weather. I left my wallet at the supermarket desk yesterday (a kind woman ran after me!) probably as was focused on getting bags packed and home as soon as possible.

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Re-assuring, yes distraction, more and more I find that if I do something just a little bit different it has a knock on effect on other things which come after.

And heat of course too. Yesterday my frequent visits in and to the pond were punctuated by the increasing force of the breeze. A hot breeze, I don’t remember anywhere in the world, short of close to a fire, where the wind was that hot. Different this morning, a cool one again, our hot wind has moved on north to our families in England.

and here in the Charente, its wafting up the smell of the fires raging in the Gironde…

I’ve just done the very same thing, fortunately only got halfway across the car park before I was shouted at​:roll_eyes::roll_eyes:

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I use a small shoulder bag now, all the stuff you mention plus my iPad ect. Is impossible to manage just with pockets :slightly_smiling_face: Of course, it also means I can loose everything in one go.

Don’t worry folks. It’s not Alzheimers, just Sometimers. :slight_smile:

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Forgetting where the car keys are is just a lack of mental bandwidth.

(And entirely understandable in your case!)

Forgetting what the car keys are for is when you need to worry!

Joking aside, I think this is about the best explanation of dementia that I have heard.

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Indeed, but I am a tad worried that I can’t sit down because of where the car keys are sticking out. :astonished: :neutral_face:

@cat did you mean to put a link in or is it me not seeing it on my phone

When I shop, I always wear my shoulder bag slung over my head for the strap to rest securely on my right shoulder with the bag resting against my left hip – always. Once, and don’t know why, I hung my shoulder bag, with credit cards, smartphone, passport, cheque book – you name it, on a hook on the back part of the supermarket trolley.

When finished shopping I walked to my car and emptied the shopping into the boot, parked the trolley back with all the others, went to my car and drove home, leaving, unknowingly then, my shoulder bag still hanging on the trolley.

Soon as I got home, I immediately swung the car round and drove back to the supermarket in great haste, pulled out trolley after trolly but my shoulder bag was gone – not there.

Staff couldn’t help so went home to later receive a phone call. The caller, when I saw her later at her home, said she didn’t turn my shoulder bag over to staff in the supermarket because I would never see it again.

I did something different that day, out of step, not routine. Happens to us all. And I was lucky that time.

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If your car keys had been in the bag, you couldn’t have left without it. Where were they?

In my pocket…

Ah, a lesson for the future then, keep them in your bag. :wink:
Have you changed now? :slightly_smiling_face:

If the car keys had been in my shoulderbag, I’d have known it straight away when I tried to open the boot, and would then have immediately realised my mistake…

I always put my keys in my shoulderbag, but didn’t for some unknown reason that particular day…

So 2 things out of the normal then. Keys in the bag and bag on the trolley. You really were lucky, usually only one change is enough to be disastrous. In my case in the OP it was my rush to liberate Fran and Jules from the confines of the hot house, rather than the normal progression of gate shutting, hatch and cage opening, bag grabbing and little bits on the passenger seat dropped in a bag on the way past.

Luckily, nobody nicked the car overnight, so not disastrous. The fact that it would have been difficult for someone to do so given Jules’ fantastic hearing and wolf howl at any disturbance, is neither here nor there. . :joy:

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Dementia is when you look at that car, with that dog sitting in it, and you wonder who left them there…

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