Fifty Plus (50+) - Why I don’t ride my bike as often as I used to. (Quite long)

This is not original, but it so applies to the 50+ Forum that I couldn't resist. If it has been posted before, I apologize.

Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D. (Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder).
This is how it manifests:

I decided that it was a good day to go for a ride. As I get my bike out, I notice that the yard looks a little dry. I decide to water my lawn. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decided 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 garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage 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 checkbook off the table and see that there is only one check left. My extra checks 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 checks, 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 set the Coke down on the counter 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 counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone 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 living room 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:
I didn’t go for a ride.
The lawn isn't watered,
The car isn't washed,
The bills aren't paid,

There is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter; the flowers don't have enough water. There is still only one check in my check book, I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses, I don't remember what I did with the car keys. My neighbor called to tell me he turned off the hose that was flooding his driveway, and my wife came in and said that my bike is blocking the garage and that I should put it away and then put her car away.

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. Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember to whom it has been sent. If you don't have this problem, maybe you don't belong on the 50+ Forum......

Shoot, I just thought it was a viral thing!

Unfortunately, this is no joke for some folks. We all fight this, to some degree.

What was this thread about?

I was about to respond to this thread, but then I noticed that I'd left my cell phone in a spot where I'd probably forget it later, so I decided to move that, when I realized I needed to use the bathroom first.

Headed that way and found a teeshirt lying on the floor that belonged in the hamper, so I figured a short detour wouldn't hurt anything, and I discovered that a library book I've been looking for about a week (because it was overdue) was lying sort of half-under the bed, so I took it out and figured I'd better put it somewhere I'd remember it, which meant laying it in the middle of the hallway towards the stairs where I couldn't miss it, when the cell phone went off, causing me to scurry back into the office but it was too late, I missed the call.

That made me remember I hadn't rescheduled the dental appointment I have next week that I can't make, so I figured I'd better do that, but before I could retrieve the dentist's phone number I accidently clicked on my email application, and there was an urgent email from a client which I figured I'd better respond to, but then I didn't want to be a slave to my email program so I simply flagged the email and realized that I needed some coffee.

After wandering into the kitchen to make coffee and getting irritated with the sinkful of dirty dishes, I began putting them in the dishwasher when the doorbell rang and it turned out to be someone trying to talk politics so I said "No, thanks," and wandered back into the office, with no coffee, and decided I needed to relax by firing up the 50+ forum and reading the latest posts which is when I realized I hadn't replied to this one.

Phew!

It's a matter of priorities for you; nothing to do with age.

The OP reminds me a day back in '62. We were working the day watch out of Ramparts Division. My partner was Morgan Diego. We pulled over a car load of puds from Ohio, out here on the West Coast for a little look-see. They had just gotten back to their West Los Angeles Hotel from a side trip to Disneyland. Yeah, that's what I said...Disneyland. It seems the knucklehead who was playing Mickey Mouse in Tune Town earlier that day had copped a feel from the lady, if you could call her a lady. She was a mess. A 100 proof floozy from the old school. You know the type. Get married one day, have a kid the next, run down to Mexico for a quicky divorce the third, then remarry the fourth. Anyway, the guy who was in the Mickey Mouse outfit laid a story on the family about being an out of work actor, and could he stay with them in West LA, just to get in a few auditions. Well, the genetleman said no, the actor copped a feel of the wife, and their day went downhill from there. The same old story. We've heard it a thousand times out here in Tinseltown. But not these onion pickers from Dayton. Yeah, that's what I said, Dayton. They claimed to be related to the Wright Brothers, seeing as though their name was Wright, and they were from Dayton and all. They said they couldn't decide if they wanted to ride their bikes out to L.A. or take a plane. Which was kind of funny, since the Wright Brothers were bicycle mechanics and had something to do with airplanes back in the day. My partner Morgan and I had a laugh about that after work at a local watering hole where cops came to unwind after a rough day out on the streets, busting non-white felons for lord knows what offenses. So we're in this bar, see, and in comes the actor who was playing Mickey in Tune Town and copped feel from this woman. We knew it was him, because he was still wearing his Mickey Mouse shoes, and his face was still red from the slap he got right in the kisser. So this guy sits down next to us, and my parter says to him, right to his face, "Are you the guy who plays Mickey in Tune Town on Wednesdays down at Disneyland?" It was a Wednesday, so I knew Morgan had that part right. And the guys says, "Yeah, how the bleep did you know THAT?" Now, I've been on the beat in L.A. since VJ day, and I've heard it all. But this creep, he just comes right out and says, "How the bleep" to us. So I said to the guy, "Mister, I don't know who you are besides the fact that you play Mickey in Tune Town on Wednesdays, and you like to cop-a-feel now and again. But using language like "bleep" around deputized police officers is way outta line." And the guy loses it. He starts tossing out his acting resume from his time in New York...that kind of stuff...the stuff that makes me want to puke when I hear it, because I've done some time on the boards doing summer stock back in the late 30's, and frankly, I was pretty damn good. So I don't need to hear it from this punk, how he studied with this guy or that guy, and how he was going to be a big star, or end up dead or in jail. So I said, "We can arrange that." And he says, "You mean make me a big star, or kill me, or put me in jail?" Now the barkeep gets into it, because he was quite an actor back in Philidelphia in the 50's, before anyone outside of Philidelphia had ever heard of Philidelphia. He says, "Take it outside, you guys." Well, that's all my partner Morgan had to hear. Three Shirley Temples and he was nuts. That night, he was already into his fourth. Just as he was about to take a swing at Mickey From Tune Town, in walks the family from Ohio...only this time, the wife is with a different husband. Seems she had taken the train down to Tijuana that afternoon, gotten a divorce, and got remarried on the ride back to L.A. Like I said, she was an old shcool floozy. I made a metal note to ask her out at the end of the evening...

Now I don't remember what the thread was about.

Now I don't remember what the thread was about.


Hey I got this Tony Roberts Mega Memory thingy, I'm sure it would help.....

....if I could remember where I put it???????

Hey I got this Tony Roberts Mega Memory thingy, I'm sure it would help.....

....if I could remember where I put it???????
Hey, I bought one of those too........ I wonder where mine is at?

Tell us, since you can't get anything done, are you a senator or congressman?

Tell us, since you can't get anything done, are you a senator or congressman?

Nope.......I only screw up my own life. If I was a Sen or Rep, I would be screwing up lots of other people's lives--and geting paid to do it......

The OP reminds me a day back in '62...

Diego, you've seriously missed your calling in life. If I could write humor like you, I'd head for Tijuana, get a quickie divorce, and go looking to slap someone too! :)

I am just over 50 and I was diagnosed last year with ADHD. Actually I self diagnosed and then had it confirmed by a shrink. prior to this I had no idea what ADHD was. What you wrote was the best description of a true ADD day..... all my days are like that. It's pretty tough when you are self employed like me, not a lot gets done. I don't know how anyone without ADD could have written that. I hope I don't get the AA added to it!

I just noticed that you said this is not original...I guess I wasn't paying attention...