It's never easy trying to remember all the things you've forgotten, but sometimes it can be easier than forgetting all the things you wish you didn't remember.

I try to think that way when I accidentally forget something, but it doesn't usually make me feel any better as I slog back up the stairs to the office.

At least once per week, I walk out on my way to some errand and leave the keys to the truck lying on my desk. I then have to walk back across the parking lot, up the stairs and to the beginning point to ‘start over.'

Luckily, I have yet to forget the keys on the second trip, but I have found myself asking that question that frightens so many of us, "What did I come in here for?"

As you might imagine, it's not only the keys I can't remember to bring with me, but other things as well. I forget to get my glasses, or forget where I put them. I lost my sunglasses last week and they were perched on top of my hat, where I had placed them only moments earlier.

I didn't realize that until I had already done a hasty search of the car and turned up nothing.

That's why I always put everything in the same place, so I won't have to remember where it went. I hid a key to a building one time and forgot where it was until I found it again by accident about a year later.

I'll bet there are things in this world that others will find after I'm dead and gone and ask, "What's that doing there?"

Whatever it is that they find, I hope they keep up with it better than I could.

I don't like it when things aren't where I remember putting them, even if I don't remember where I put them. Therefore, I always try to put things in a few specific places by category so I can run them down at some point in the future.

I forget appointments unless I program them into my telephone, which then rings to tell me to go to the right place. Maybe I should just set the alarm for five minutes before I leave to remind myself to get my keys. I'll do that if I don't forget in the meantime.

I've yet to understand what makes a person more forgetful than others. I sometimes like to think it is because my mind is going so far and so fast that the mundane things in life are forgotten.

Obviously, that beats the alternative of a man whose mind is in park with a broken mental shifter. If given several alternatives, I try to always think the best one of myself. After all, no matter what happens, I still have to live with me until the end.

Yes, others may come and go, but I'm with me in the flesh until the breathing stops and through eternity spiritually, so I have to keep on my good side. There's nothing worse than going through life mad at yourself.

Of course, that isn't easy to avoid when you're dashing up a flight of steps in search of the keys that should have been with you on the way to the appointment which you just became late for 15 minutes ago.

Sometimes I'm glad when I leave the cell phone behind, but other times I find myself in need of it and not in possession of it. My mother used to tell me, "You'd forget your head if it wasn't screwed on."

I'm rather glad she was fond of telling me that, since it now lets me know that my malady isn't really age related.

Some people are just prone to forget things and others aren't. That's why I started keeping a list of all the things I want and need to do now and in the near future, which has made me a virtual slave to a piece of paper that I drafted myself. It's a contract to work on things and not forget them that goes forward into perpetuity.

Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't be better off just not thinking about those things and doing whatever happens to come to mind. Surely the more important things would pop up again. After all, they must have popped up once or I wouldn't have thought of them to write them down to start with. It's only logical that such thoughts are on some sort of a rotation, like the sandwiches in one of those hospital vending machines. But, also like those machines, someone comes by every once in a while and takes out the old sandwiches and replaces them with new sandwiches. I don't know what that had to do with memory, but it really makes me want a sandwich. Maybe if I keep writing I'll forget about it soon.

What was I talking about?

Anyway, there is a saying that ignorance is bliss, and another that states that a short memory and a loving heart are the hallmarks of a good Christian.

So, if you want to be happy, don't know much, don't remember much and be really nice to everyone.

Only here in the newspaper can you have all of the answers to life's most important questions, every week for only 35 cents and 15 minutes of reading time.

The things I do every day are things that I find the easiest to remember. Things like feeding the animals, which now includes a fish, chickens, little chicks, cats and kittens and several other woodland critters. As for those critters, I'd like to stop feeding them, but I don't think I'll be able to do so until I figure out a way to keep them out of my garden.

I had a large set of deer tracks all over the garden last week, but I didn't identify any crops it may have eaten. The recent rains have been a real blessing for me, since they turned my dusty, barren garden into a well-watered weed bed. Now I need to get out there and walk around, but it's too wet.

I'll probably remember that, since the big things are what generally occupy my mind. It's the small details that usually end up getting dropped (although I do sometimes forget big stuff, too). What it all boils down to is this: short-term memory is likely to be a long-term problem.

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