Focus Pocus

It’s important to stay focused.

If we’re not focused then we do dumb things like backing into parked cars…or silly things like pouring milk on our salad…which, surprisingly, is not all that bad.

It seems everyone is distracted these days by something.

Too many Tweets from Bill Clinton.

That E-mail argument you had at work over who ate the last jelly donut…the first…and possibly, maybe the other two in between.

The weird look the valet parker guy in the garage is giving you.

Your puzzlement as to why you are in a garage in the first place since you don’t even own a car.

All things that keep us from focusing on the task at hand.

What was I saying...?

Oh…right…focus.

I have a particular problem with focusing because my mind just wanders off to wherever it wants to go at any given moment.

Most of the time it—

Soup…I’ve got to remember to pick up some more soup….

Sorry…where was I again?

Focus….

It’s important.

Especially if someone is talking to you and you’re supposed to be listening, instead of just nodding your head and smiling while they tell you about the time their grandfather was mistakenly arrested for improper use of a chainsaw on government property and shipped to Gitmo for 6 months.

 “That’s funny!” normally a more than acceptable response to most unfocused listening situations is, however, probably not the thing you’re looking for in this particular instance.

Nor at the end of a long convoluted phone call with your best friend that ends with… “So I guess I’ll just have to get another cat….”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve handed over a 20 dollar bill for a 2 dollar purchase and started to walk away without my change.

Or the times I’ve walked away with somebody else’s change….

Or the times I’ve put  my car keys in the refrigerator to remind myself not to leave without taking my lunch…then spend 20 minutes cursing, later on, when I can’t find my keys, becoming so upset that when I do find them, I forget to take the sandwich.

Walking into the kitchen and forgetting why is one thing.

Driving down a highway and wondering why is another.

Forgetting birthdays might be understandable…but not your own.

Toweling off after a shower and wondering if you actually washed your hair is disturbing.

But not as disturbing as toweling off and wondering if you actually took a shower.

And while some of it might be attributable to advancing years contributing to an overload of data stored on an ever diminishing internal hard drive…most of it is merely due to a lack of….

Uh….

Whatever it was ….that thing I was talking about…for some reason.

I’m not sure now….

But I think it made some sense…at the time.

It’ll come back to me….

Hey…I think there’s a basketball game on tonight…or was it last night…maybe tomorrow.

 

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