My Brain

When I read Angel's comment about leaving shoes around the house it reminded me so much of myself. I have this problem where I cannot do two things at once. So if someone is talking to me I will set things down and not remember where I put it, not remember actually setting it down at all.

For example, yesterday...

Mandy is applying to do the summer hire program again this year. This is where high school students get jobs working in various offices around the base. They get paid good money and it is actually counted as being a federal employee and all that comes with that status. Last year Mandy worked at the post office. There isn't any air conditioning on the base and her hours were 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Working in the warehouse sorting mail, including the heavy boxes. It must have been between 90 and 100 degrees in that warehouse. Nothing like some hard labor to teach a teenager values. This year she specifically requested working in an office, we will see.

Anyways, yesterday was the last day to turn in the application. So of course this is the day we chose to do it. I am a bad mother in that I didn't read the application or check to see what she wrote, I gave it to her and set up a time I would pick her up from school and drive her to where she needed to turn it in. When I got there she was still filling in the paperwork. I don't know why she was doing it then instead of the night before, but whatever. So it turns out she needed her passport and social security card. She was upset that I hadn't read the paperwork and bring everything she needed with me. Why would I read her paperwork? See, not a real nice mom. So I drove home to get what she needed while she went to the bank to set up a direct deposit and then walked to her dad's office to finish filling out the paperwork.

I drove all the way home (3 miles) through a lot of construction, at a rate of about 5 mph, on-base speed limits are crazy slow. I get home and I took Lily out of the car and brought her in the house with me. It is illegal to leave your child in the car even for a minute. If you break a law on base someone will turn you in. Anyways I get the passport, I have it in my hand. I try to get Lily to come back over to me, to not take off her shoes, and to go back to the car. During this process I, unbeknownst to my brain, set down the passport on the counter. I get Lily back in the car, buckled in her car seat and start driving the 3 miles back to where Mandy is. About 10 minutes later, remember I am driving really slow, I start thinking, where is that passport?

I pulled over to the side of the road and started looking threw my purse, my glove box, my pockets, no passport. I turn around and drive back home. I get Lily out of the car, go in the house, I don't put her down. I find the passport on the counter and grab it. I go back to the car, pick up Mandy and take her to the office she needs to turn in her paper work. We are 15 minutes late. We have the wrong passport (we have to have govt issued passports and tourist passports). The lady who is working there is so nice she lets it all slide and takes the application and it turns out we don't need the passport at all. I didn't go in with Mandy I went and turned in my application for a scholarship for next semester. Poor Mandy had to do it all on her own.

So this is my brain, I set things down all the time without realizing it. Tomorrow I will tell you how Jeff takes all the stuff I leave lying around and hides it from me.