Christmas in May

What do you say about a person who, when she finally gets someone to move her ficus tree outside for the coming summer, later looks out the window to see a tail of Christmas lights drooping from its spindly limbs? She has spent years of walking with her husband through the neighborhood griping about people who wait a month or more to take down their outdoor lights. So how did this come about? Does it mean that she can't see well enough to notice that the cord with the plug on the end of it is being watered every day along with the tree? Does she not realize that time is quickly passing by, and May flowers have already blossomed from April showers? Or is she a lazy good for nothin' who should be shot?

Somehow, I don't think any of the above apply: I happen to know that she's reached the dreaded season of life when her brain is operating the best it can with non-snapping neurons(no synapse) and a definite lack of serotonin(happy happy happy, we're so happy). You know what I mean, don't you? The shades are moving up and down but nobody's home? It doesn't surprise ME, because I've observed her neurons losing their zip for years now....haven't you noticed that when she attempts a witty comeback, it ends up being a combination of something that doesn't apply and something that might but the beginning belongs to some other ending? SHE knows what she's talking about (she claims) and it makes perfect sense to HER; she reasons that it must be that everyone else has a HEARING problem---probably deaf in one ear so they can't make much sense of ANY conversation that involves more than one person...

So, activated and motivated by the little serotonin her brain has left, she moves on to some other arena of give and take talk and she's feeling great! She fits right in with this younger crowd and it seems to her like she's flowing with the go, so she's ready to be brilliant and surprise all these interesting people who are so well informed. Her mouth opens, her eyes widen as she anticipates sharing her clever comment, but one neuron tries to snap and fails and then another; her serotonin is pouring down the drain, and she is left to dazzle her audience with: "Mardon me, Padam, is this pie occupewed?" Oh no, her recently stored cutting-edge facts about both political and technical fields(acquired, of course from her children and the Internet---did you know she INVENTED the Internet?) has disappeared down the drain along with her serotonin, leaving her with nothing but a file of sayings from her childhood days: "Good thing it wasn't a clean tablecloth," she offers that week to the waiter as he brings her meal. "At least we know you're not two-faced, or you wouldn't be wearing that one!" she whispers to her best friend. "Tomorrow's another day..." is her answer to her husband's query about the current date. She greets the postman with: "Many hands make light work" and her neighbor, who has been laid off hears her call across the street, "See a penny, pick it up and all day you'll have good luck!" "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," she chirps to the checkout clerk at Kroger's. Her cat is served her Science Diet along with with the admonition: "De gustibus non disputandem est!" And when her husband announces he is going upstairs to change for his bike ride, she has the perfect quip: "What are you going to change into, a fairy godmother?"

So it should be no surprise that this woman who has adapted so well to her synapse impairment, HAS noticed those droopy lights; in fact, she has noticed them every day since Christmas, and each day she tells herself she must take them down. One neuron gives a half-hearted try at retaining this bit of vital info, but instead misses and fizzles. By the time she walks out of the room she doesn't recall ever having that conversation with herself. Until the next day, when she notices those droopy lights....

Merry Christmas, everybody, it's May! "Mayday, Mayday...."