Two weeks ago, I was behind the mother of one of my daughter’s classmates in the grocery store check out line. She accidentally paid for hamburger meat and then left it behind on the counter. By the time the clerk and I noticed, she was gone. The clerk was handing it to another clerk to restock in the meat section when I offered to take the meat to my friendly acquaintance. It was only $4.72 but it just didn’t seem right to restock her meat. My intentions were pure.

The next day I saw the woman, Umma, and cheerily mentioned that I had her meat in my freezer and wanted to get it back to her. She kindly responded “Oh thank you. I got half way through making lasagana and realized I had forgotten it. No worries though” she said good humoredly, “please go ahead and use it.” I pressed “are you sure?” and she reassured me she was sure and please use it. End of dumb story, right?

Unfortunately for me (and Umma), every time I’ve seen the poor woman for the past two weeks I’ve mentioned her hamburger meat and wanting to get it back to her. Then the other day, my husband put it in the refridgerator to defrost and cook. For whatever reason, he never wound up cooking it and so I threw it out when I noticed its color turning. I felt compelled to share this outcome with Umma after I tracked her down yesterday. (I think she was trying to steer clear of me). Embarassed by my ruminating over this $4 meat, I burst out laughing so hard I could hardly finish the horribly boring and trivial tale. Umma patted me on my shoulder and laughed along with me as she said, “I hate it when I get something stuck in my mind.” Amen sister! I hate it even more when I then obsess about what the other person thinks about all my obsessing.

Baby Quinn woke me up and I haven’t been able to fall back asleep. It’s 3 am and I feel compelled to write about the cruel flipside to memory loss…OBSESSING.

I have so much more on this topic but alas, sleep beckons. Diane