In a less or more severe degree…
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Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D. – Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.
This is how it manifests itself:
I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.
As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is 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 car.
I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the rubbish bin under the table, and notice that the bin is full.
So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the rubbish first.
But then I think, since I’m going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.
I take my chequebook off the table, and see that there is only one cheque left. My extra cheques are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of coke that I had been drinking.
I’m going to look for my cheques, but first I need to push the coke aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over. I see that the coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.
As I head toward the kitchen with the coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye: they need to be watered.
I place the coke down on the work surface, and I discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to water the flowers.
I set the glasses back down on the work top, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone has left it on the kitchen table.
I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won’t remember that it’s on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the lounge where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers.
I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and 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 car isn’t washed
- The bills aren’t paid
- There is a warm can of coke sitting on the work surface
- The flowers don’t have enough water
- There is still only one cheque in my chequebook
- I can’t find the remote
- I can’t find my glasses and I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.
Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, 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.
PS. I just remembered, I left the water running.