Down and Out, and Counting

Sometimes I drift. My mind wanders, travels – compulsively, frequently, spontaneously and of its own accord – to a familiar and nearby place where it busies itself counting and averaging, arranging and cataloging. The condition has been diagnosed as Attention Deficit Disorder, but it’s hardly disorderly. My mind tidies up and organizes the clutter perceived around it. I sense it’s closer to autism or obsessional neurosis; that I missed being one of these special people by just a little. To those close to me it’s apparent when this has happened. It’s as though little “Out of Order” signs, hanging askew, have suddenly appeared where my eyes, moments earlier alert, attentive and inquiring but now glazed over, had been.

At meetings, where I find myself too often, I’m sometimes useless. Now and then I can be seen from the podium, sitting there with my eyes open but apparently asleep. I’m sure it’s disconcerting for the speaker but while I am not asleep, I am engaged elsewhere. I have lost interest in what’s going on and am now memorizing the names of the participants and arranging them alphabetically by last name, by first name, maybe by both. If time permits and something doesn’t happen to jolt me back to the business at hand I will continue in orbit and assign the alpha characters of their names a numerical value (A=1, Z =26) and then average them. Occasionally I can come up with an acronym from the average for those assembled. At a recent meeting of the, well – never mind, the acronym revealed was, interestingly, “dithering.”

While driving, if conversation is lagging or there’s nothing interesting on the radio, I’m soon assigning numeric values to the alpha characters of passing license plates, trying to average them along with the numeric characters and then solving for the resulting two digit alpha-numeric answer, 693KPL = 6M, before the vehicle has passed from view. If you see me coming it would be safer for you and easier for me if you slowed down a little.

The average height of the 73 people encountered during a stroll from one end of Main Street to the other, at around noon on a Tuesday in early August last year was, I’m guessing about the height of course but am sure of the average, 5 feet 8 inches. These were the adults. I excluded the children, actually tried to do them simultaneously and separately but failed miserably. I made a note to try again next August but it will have to be same time, 9 a.m., on the same day, the 7th. I usually present a thumbs up when I’ve got the answer.

Generally folks don’t know that I have this compulsion, an obsessive nature. In fact, the average age of those who do know is 54. This is a fluid number of course, changing now and then as someone else is taken into my confidence. That will change dramatically today, with the publication of these 1,107 words, 212 less than my average this year and 267 less than the average of all my essays.

Last year my wife and I lived alone with one another for the first time in 18 years. Our daughters were away, one in Connecticut at work and the other attending high school in Massachusetts. Katie kind of excels academically. I like to acknowledge this characteristic by observing to those who commend us on her achievements that she has my mind but she’s cute like her mother. I think this is funny, a lot funnier than they do. Anyway, with our daughters gone there was only a manageable amount of stuff in the house to obsess over. In the bathroom for example, the shower specifically, can generally be found the following three categories of things: bars of soap, containers and implements. During the period from September 6 of 2000 until June 8, 2001, during that time we were alone, there could commonly be found a few of each of these things: a couple of bars of soap, a couple of containers of shampoo or conditioner, and three implements – one of those spongy things on a string, a razor and a pumice stone. It was a simple matter, hardly challenging, to, while showering, make an orderly presentation of these items, to arrange them alphabetically on one of the several built-in shelves.

In June both daughters arrived back home for the summer. Katie was soon visited by a girl friend from France and Sarah by two girl friends from Connecticut. During a shower I began my customary inventory of the vast array of things that had suddenly accumulated and set about the necessary business of creating order from chaos..

Advanced strengthening Hydration Therapy Intensive Treatment (makes hair 5x stronger) – I anguish over a label like that. It’s very unsettling, too many words, doesn’t lend itself to orderly arranging. But it jolts me back to my senses. Little things do that, they’re lifelines to reality. In this case it’s the note on the label that says this stuff will make hair five times stronger. Which of these girls wants her hair stronger by a factor of five, and why? Is there a Rapunzel among us? Will there be island boys heaving themselves up over the windowsills tonight after having ascended hand-over-hand up the luxurious folds of intensively treated hair? Here is a bottle of Exfoliating Body Wash. Exfoliating? Is that like Agent Orange? Could you accomplish the same thing, and less expensively, with a sea urchin? Does the manufacturer presume to know better than that which created us when this protective layer should be removed? Silk Protein Enriched Shampoo and Conditioner and Clean Rinsing Conditioner for Normal to Oily Hair with Sage, Jasmine & Soy Protein in Mountain Spring Water. I associate protein with meat and fish, sage with seasoning, soy with stir fry, and mountain spring water with the Coors brewery I visited so often while stationed in Denver. When did these things find their way into shampoo, and why? Shimmering Shower Gel with Glitter and Fruit Essentials Body Wash in Juicy Melon or Fresh Peach. These are frightening terms for a father; they’re flavors, after all. Encounters like these, with the real world, are the things that tether me here. As soon as the girls come home I intend to line them up alphabetically or perhaps by height, in descending order or maybe ascending and lay down the law. I’m reluctant to send my girls off into the world in a shimmering condition, neither glittering, and certainly not wafting of fresh peach or juicy melon.