Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. (Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder). This is how it manifests:
I decide I need to water the garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at the Navigator and decide it needs washing. As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.
I decide to go through the mail before I wash the truck. I lay my car keys on the table, and start going through the mail. I can't put the junk mail in the garbage under the table because I notice that it's full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first. But then I think that since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. So I open my cheque book and notice that there's only one cheque left. My extra cheques are on my desk in the study so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Pepsi I'd been drinking earlier. I'm going to look for my cheques but first I need to push the Pepsi aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.
It's then that I notice that the Pepsi's getting warm so I decide to put it in the refrigerator. As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye. They need water. I put the Pepsi on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I'd better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill the container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Somebody left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote but won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.
I pour some water in the vase but quite a bit of it spills on the floor, so I set the remote back on the table and get some towels to wipe up the spill. Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.
At the end of the day:
The truck's not washed, the bills aren't paid, there's a warm can of Pepsi sitting on the counter, the flowers don't have enough water, there is still only one cheque in my cheque book, I can't find the TV remote, I can't find my reading glasses, I don't remember what I did with the car keys, and the front yard's flooded. Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day and I'm really tired.
I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail. Do me a favour. Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember who the heck I've sent it to.