Life Stories and Beyond

I recently heard that belly fat or as it is lovingly called, a muffin top, is actually a repository for wisdom and memories we don’t often use. When the cauliflower-sized brain in our head gets filled up, all that reserve must go somewhere. I can totally believe in the muffin-belly storage compartment theory but looking around I’m pretty sure some ladies who are missing a muffin top may have tush wisdom. We all have something.

 

If we believe this theory, we can take comfort in both our forgetting and our padding. The way I see it, our waists are a little ways down so it takes a while to pull those memories all the way up to the memory bank in our heads to utilize that information. For example, as I pointed my Honda key fob at the front door and didn’t hear a click, I blamed my muffin top. Of course I knew that key fob wouldn’t work but I had what some would call a senior moment. Since I’m not really all that much of a senior, just past the half way mark, I chose to blame my muffin top.  I used the same tactic when I put the ice cream in the fridge, not the freezer. Oops. Darn muffin.

 

The other day, I was gathering dirty clothes when my husband said from the bedroom, “If you want to set the trash and recycling on the porch, I’ll take it down the driveway in a few minutes.”

 

I walked to the foyer, picked up two containers and set them on the porch. After loading the dishwasher with the morning minutia, I headed for the laundry room to get a load of towels started. The whirr of the washer and dryer make great white noise for writing or at least that’s what I like to think. Plus the multi-tasking of doing laundry and writing feels very productive.

 

Funny. There was no laundry hamper to unload although I had just gathered all the stinky gym clothes from the kids’ floors. I retraced my steps, walking through the foyer and found the recycling container. I peeked out the front door and saw a can of trash and a blue laundry hamper overflowing with boy clothes.

 

There goes that muffin-top-memory again. Now I know why I forgot to pick up my sons from a Halloween party while I sat playing cards with my oldest daughter. Realizing I was two hours late retrieving them, I knew I’d blown my chance at mother of the year, yet again. After apologizing and entering the party-trashed home, I saw one of my forgotten eight-year-olds asleep on the birthday boy’s sofa and the other was telling the boy’s mom, “No I don’t want this food. I’ll wait to eat real food when I get home.” Well, my child may not have used good manners but at least he thinks I’m a good enough mom to provide him with real food even if I did forget him. It’s the muffin’s fault.

 

Should I apply the muffin-top memory theory to the time I dropped off our preacher’s daughter at her house and also left my son Joe behind as he had gotten out to visit their Labrador Retriever? I didn’t even know he was missing till the daughter called to ask, “ Miss Lisa, did you forget something?”

 

Calling people by name is another issue I blame on my muffin. That one is major though so I also throw in more realistic excuses like, “I’m so sorry, this menapause-change of life thing is really affecting my recall. Lately, I can’t find my words.” Or, “Sorry, the doctor has me on migraine meds that make it hard for me to think.” People don’t look at me like I have three heads if I tell them that. Both of those excuses are true but I still believe there’s something to the muffin theory.

And there’s always the water hose left filling the horse trough for twelve hours and the spaghetti water boiling out so the bottom of the pot was welded to the stove eye. Definitely the muffin because my cauliflower of a brain was all full.

Need I go on? I hope other women take comfort knowing there’s a real excuse for our forgetting. So forget senior moments for now and embrace that muffin-top and blame it for everything. Enjoy that padding and laugh off your forgetfulness.