Food, Hormones and…I forgot

By: Au Kirk

I want to believe with every fiber of my being that people break into my house and steal my food.  This is the best explanation I have for why my refrigerator is empty. I go shopping almost every day, but every night when I go to make lunches for the following day, there is no food.  I am out of everything. I have to believe that I am the target of a well-established food burglary ring because the only other explanation I have is that I forget to buy what I need when I go to the grocery store.   And that can’t be true because as I tell everyone, I have an amazing memory.

I can tell you what you wore when you came to my house for dinner 15 years ago. I can tell you a couple’s chosen wedding song for every wedding I have been to throughout my life.  I can recall that Lisa Lawrence’s birthday is March 3rd, and FYI, Lisa Lawrence was my best friend in kindergarten back at PS 138 in the Bronx.  See, these long ago details do not escape my steel-trap brain, but the fact that I am out of milk or turkey for lunches slips through the seams of my grey matter quickly.

Okay, I will admit that I have a short-term memory deficit, and like most women, I will chalk it up to hormones. I pretty much chalk up all my faults to hormones.  My hormones are responsible for everything from my lead foot on the highway to my inability to mow the lawn in a straight line.   Yes, if I allow them, hormones are my excuse for everything.  And to be honest, I think I deserve that excuse, and I think all women do as well.

To counter my short-term memory issues, I keep lists. The problem with the lists is that I forget where I put them so I don’t take them with me when I go to the store. Without my lists, I tend to wander aimlessly down the aisles trying to remember why I was there; hoping something from the shelves will jump out and jog my memory. Do I remember? Never And what is worse is that I wind up spending $150 on crap that I know was not on my list but looked good on the special display that day.

I think stores in general rely on the hormonal upheaval of women. There must be some kind of retail term for sucking in perimenopausal females when a store wants them to make certain purchases. I wonder if there is some kind of scanner that goes off and alerts store management when a woman high on hormones comes through the door.  Now, that I think about it, there are a lot of women hanging out in the candy and baking aisles. I used to think that there was a low blood sugar cluster in my area, but maybe it’s just a lot of hormones fermenting.  It could be that stores have figured out the hormone thing, and this is why there is always a two-for-one promotion or a buy-three-and-get-a-fourth-free sale on the chocolate or bakery items. Maybe, I have fallen victim to this retail conspiracy against perimenopausal women and this is why I felt the need to convert one entire cupboard in my kitchen for my chocolate stash.

Wow, I got really off topic here, but a piece of dark chocolate does sound really good right now. Anyway, I think I might have to write a piece on the fluctuating hormones of women and the resulting short-term memory loss. Oh wait, I think I just did, Sorry, I forgot.


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13 thoughts on “Food, Hormones and…I forgot”

  1. Huh, I was going to leave a comment and then I realized I’d lost my butt. I could have sworn it was here just a second ago. Oh well, what was I doing just now? Eh, to hell with it, it couldn’t have been that important. 😉

  2. I am normally pretty good at remembering what is in the fridge; of course it usually just consists of ketchup and a few sweet teas. I am not a cook.

    1. Okay, Billy, you need frosting in there. Don’t ask questions – just put a can of frosting in there. You will not be disappointed. Trust me.

  3. I’m really organized when it comes to shopping. I cut coupons, make a detailed list, check the local paper for in-store ads, then get to the store and realize I’ve left everything on the kitchen table, where I was eating crap I brought last time I left my list at home! Sigh! Whiskey anyone?

  4. When you know you can make a list, your brain feels free to forget stuff. Way back before cell phones and their fancy address books, we used to remember people’s phone numbers.

  5. After menopause it goes the other way, you’ll buy duplicate items and won’t realize it until you open a container and wonder what that green, fuzzy stuff is.

  6. A built-in excuse system. How convenient.

    But let me one up you. My wife has gone to the grocery store, puts the full shopping cart out on the sidewalk, goes to get the car and bring it around to the cart, and then DRIVES HOME FORGETTING ABOUT THE GROCERIES. And to make it even better? She has done this not once, not twice, not three times. NO, not even four times! She has done this a grand total of FIVE TIMES!!!

    Yep, I’m married to her. Pause….She’s my wife.

    1. Oh my God!!!! That is so funny Matty! Now, it’s just psychological. She is just concentrating too much. Wait does she shop at my store. I will look out for her. 🙂

      1. If you looked inside her mind, you would see the wheels turning and smoking at high speed. At any given moment, she is thinking about 100 different things. To know her is to understand how easily she can simply drive off without the groceries. Fortunately, she has gone back and found them each time.

        1. Good for her finding them. I drove off with a can of spackle on my car one time. It stayed there too until a sharp turn and luckily it only hit a sign.

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