May 23, 2013 3 min read

So I sit down at the computer to do some work, and I see a scrap of paper with numbers on it. The writing’s in green ink, and I know it’s my writing because of the way the 7s are made, and also because it’s my desk.

What is this? I’ve multiplied 12 by 3 (you’d think I could have done that in my head), then added 10 and subtracted 7 twice, and then circled the number 34.

I cannot for the life of me identify what those numbers are about. What was I calculating?

It had to have been recently because the paper was on top of my keyboard. Was this about money? Was I going to buy something online? Did I owe somebody $34, and if so, who?

To be honest, it freaked me out a little. I am over 50, and every company with a dollar to make wants to tell me about the treachery of middle age. You can’t open a magazine or an internet page these days without being reminded that we’re all losing our memory, if not our minds. Despite my clicking the unsubscribe button, the people at Lumosity send me an email every morning, reminding me that my brain is like my muscles, and if I don’t exercise it I will have nothing but gray mush up there. (Now that I mention it, did I really unsubscribe? I forget.)

I took the free trial offer from Lumosity last year, and did the brain exercises for a few days. I aced them all. All of them, and I didn’t pay to sign up for more.

Sometimes I think about my thigh muscles going to mush, but not my brain. I never lose my keys or my car in the mall parking lot, and I can tell you the phone numbers of my childhood friends circa 1970. My brain is just fine, thanks.

But what about those numbers? I sat there staring at that piece of paper for a long time, hoping something would jump out at me. Finally, frustrated, I put it down and went about my day. But the question followed me around: Have I finally crossed over to the place in life where information doesn’t enter the brain like a peach pit, hard and well-formed and indestructible, but rather like the peach – soft and mushy and ready to dissolve into nothing?

I worried for an hour, putting in a load of wash and then returning to my desk to stare at the paper. I checked old emails to see if something would shake out. I checked my phone for old calls, hoping to make a link to the numbers. Is this how detectives solve crimes? And now that I mention it, could those numbers be somehow nefarious? Maybe I’ve been up to no good, and don’t even know it.

Then I opened my desk drawer and saw my bottle of allergy pills. Eureka! I take two of them a day, and the mystery numbers were to calculate when I would need a refill.

I keep the pills in my desk drawer so I’ll remember to take them every morning. Pretty funny, huh?

Relieved, I looked at the numbers again. Thirty-nine minus seven is not 34, you dolt, it’s 32. I subtracted wrong. I must be getting old.