I lost the cheese tonight

Seriously: I took it out the fridge and cut a few slices while I decided what to do for tea. Put it away. Peeled some potatoes, chopped them into pieces while boiling a kettle of water, and set them bubbling away on the hob. Slipped a pie in the oven. Went to get the cheese back out the fridge for another few slices while I considered additional vegetables. Cheese wasn’t there.

We haven’t got a particularly over-stocked fridge right now, so it’s not like I just couldn’t find it amongst the jostling ranks of chilled and healthy produce. It genuinely wasn’t there. And I knew immediately that I’d put it somewhere stupid.

You know when you go to put on a CD, and you can’t find the case for the one already inside the stereo? And how when you’re feeling lazy you just pop it into the case that’s just been vacated by the album that you’re about to put on? And how after an evening of drunken laziness you awake to discover that you’ve placed ten different CDs into the cases of the ones that were played after them and you can’t find anything? I’m getting this way with food.

The cheese, for example, was in the cupboard that I’d earlier looked into, in search of some crisps. This wasn’t too bad, admittedly. Had I recently changed the bleach block in the bathroom, I might have later placed half a slab of medium cheddar in the cistern alongside it.

In most instances I’m evidently subconsciously cautious, however. Things tend to go into the fridge as a sort of unthinking default. Even bottles of washing up liquid, or occasionally books. But no harm comes to any of them. Certainly not of the kind that might result from unpacking a box of choc-ices into the DVD cabinet, for example, or putting dried cat food in with the broken biscuits.

It’s nice that even when I’m being stupid, some part of my brain is still trying to limit the damage I can cause. But I’m noticing my auto pilot is becoming less and less reliable when it comes to much simpler day-to-day tasks.

I’m finding myself sitting down to dinner, having equipped myself with an extra knife rather than a fork. The other day as I left the house for work, I grabbed my wallet, keys, bus pass, and instead of two memory sticks loaded with files that I needed that day - two lighters.

It’s not just me: a friend recently ran off a list of invited attendees for an upcoming party, counting as he went, and the first two people he said were different nicknames for the same individual. As he carried on to number three, a deep frown crept down his face as he evidently realised something was amiss. As he continued to list names he began to stare accusingly at his sequentially unfurling fingers, but he’d still got all the way to number five before he managed to pinpoint exactly what was wrong.

So from now on I’m going to pay extra special attention to my day-to-day activities, no matter how mundane. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go select some music to play. And then try and determine which case the actual CD is hiding in.

Fear of a biscuit

As you get older, you become slightly more cautious with your own body. You’re much more aware of how fragile it is than you were when you were a child. At that stage, you were still growing, and your body could handle the odd broken leg or whatever. And you had fewer responsibilities, so potentially being laid up for a few weeks wasn’t such an inconvenience.

So you’d throw yourself around with reckless abandon and generally be alright. And you’d look at the adults moving slowly and stiffly and they would seem like another species and you’d silently scoff at them for not recognising the aceness of larking about in trees and that.

I’m older now, and heavier, and less ready to jump down off walls. and I try to remember to stretch my quads now and again. I had a back spasm a few months back that made me roar with pain and frustration.

Biscuit terror

Anyway, my point is, with age and creakiness I now appreciate why the adults of my youth were more cautious than me and my childhood friends.

But then the other day, while thinking about this, I heard an exchange between two of my elders that went like this:

‘Biscuit?’
‘Oh no, I’d better not.’

I’ve heard variations on this many times, with elderly folk speaking of biscuits as if they’re hallowed treats for special occassions, or refusing one when offered because they’d already had one earlier. And now I’m worried that there’s a reason for this: when you get older, do biscuits give you hangovers or something? It can’t be the calories.

I love biscuits, I’ll merrily guzzle down a packet in one sitting like they’re crisps. But will I lose my biccie tolerance as I age?

There’s a beautiful paranoia to thoughts like this. I’m older now, and would like to think I’m more rational, and yet my fears become more and more ludicrous.

When I cross the street, I worry not one jot about getting run over. No. I worry about dropping my keys down a drain as I step onto the opposite kerb. My keys which are safely esconsed in my pocket. I’m fearful they’re actually going to leap out suddenly and drop between the grating.

On a visit to London a few years ago, I remember being thoroughly distracted as I crossed the Millennium Bridge. Not because I thought I’d fall over the side. Or because of it’s documented swaying and that. But because it’s surface is a grille, and you can see the depth of the Thames below you. And there was a voice at the back of my head the whole way over telling me that my keys were in a jumpy mood again.

And yet, when I take a pizza out the oven, and a lovely big bit of pepperami drops onto the bottom of the oven, I’ll still try and pick it up off the sizzling hot metal base plate with my fingers.

I work in an office. The only injury that will actually hinder me from doing my job is burnt fingers. And yet I will happily, and regularly, expose them to a scalding hot surface for one more bit of pepperami.

While my fear of biscuits grows…