*Selective Amnesia

Ok, so I am convinced that selective amnesia is inherited from a child’s father. There is no other logical explanation. My children all have it, and I’m sure yours do too. Let me state an example of selective amnesia….You tell your child to clean his or her room before going to the video arcade. He or she conveniently forgets to do so, stating it must have slipped their mind. On the flip side, you tell your child to get $10 out of your wallet before going to arcade….do you think they forget that one??? Hell no! That $10 is gone and so is your kid. Is that room clean? No way! How does this happen?

There has to be some sort of amnesia gene our kids are born with and the defect comes straight from the father. No mother or wife could ever get away with having this problem. Oh, damn honey, sorry I forgot to feed you, but I did get a new duvet. I mean, Joe will completely forget that I had asked him to take some trash to the dump, but he will remember to overhaul his entire car that weekend. He will forget that he left his clothes on the bathroom floor, but he will remember that Jimmy Kimmel comes on at 10:35pm, on channel 3. It will have slipped his mind to have rinsed his hair down the sink after shaving, but the next car show is in September over 200 days away, and if I ask, he’ll tell me down to the minute how much time remains. He has passed this disorder down to my children. I try and correct my boys now, so that they too don’t pass this horrible amnesia to their own, but I fear I am failing.

I ask Joey to please pick up his legos so I do not permanently imprint the bottom of my foot, as I am trying to keep my cursing to a minimum (stepping on legos is an immediate deal breaker). Walk, walk, walk, oh shit, damn, damn, damn…”AHHH!!!!! Joey, I told you to pick these up!” His reply in his tiny 4-year-old voice, “Oh, yeah, sorry mommy, I forgot”. Never mind that I had asked him 5 times in the past hour, he plain forgot. But, tell him that he will see Sesame Street Live next week, and he remembers the whole plan. “We will take Ariel to school, then take Corey to Papa’s house, then we will go to the show at 10:30, then after have McDonalds and maybe a vanilla shake.” Poor kid…he has this horrible mutated gene, and it’s Joe’s fault.

I took partial fault in the lazy disease, this one is all Joe! I can have no part in this. I somehow remember to change diapers, clean the bathtub and check email almost simultaneously. How can they not remember step-by-step instructions? They will entirely omit one of the steps due to amnesia.

As you can see this is frustrating for me, and I’m sure all other moms and wives worldwide. So, what do we do about it? I’ll tell you….urge congress to fund a research for this gene mutation and stop it in its tracks. I did write a formal letter myself, but have had no response. I’m sure the receiver of my request was a man and he ‘forgot ‘ to respond.