That middle-age-memory thing has struck again. 

Travelling used to be sort of fun.  I would make mental notes of stuff I shouldn’t forget and nine times out of ten, they’d get packed.  Of course, packing them and getting them into the car are two different things.

There was the time I left the hanging bag hanging in my closet.  And of course this was also the time I packed all my shoes in the pockets of the hanging bag.  And this was the time I had to go to a formal dinner an hour after I arrived at my destination.

Then there was the time I thought my husband had picked up the suitcase, and he thought I had picked up the suitcase and it turns out no one had picked up the suitcase and I was on a boat somewhere in the middle of an ocean far, far away, for a week, with no change of clothes.

Nowadays, though, making “mental notes” is an oxymoron.  If I don’t write it down, it won’t be remembered.  Simple as that.  So I have lists for everything.  List of things to do, people to call, groceries to buy.  Some people call this being organized.  I call it trying to keep my head above water.  Now all I have to do is remember where I put the lists.

So, anyway, last week, when we were planning to spend several days with my aunt lounging at her lake  house, I made lots of lists.  I remembered all sorts of stuff.  I even remembered to check my lists before we left home.

It wasn’t until we were an hour and a half into the trip that my husband turned to me and asked, “How are you getting home?”  He was leaving a day before me.  We needed two cars.  We only had one.

How can we explain to our friends that we forgot a car?!  A toothbrush maybe, but a car?!

Well, we have to chalk it up to middle age memory.

And “car” wasn’t on any of my lists.