The first thing to go

I recently turned 57. I took the day off and at some point I went to the supermarket, a form of recreation for me. I was loading up my cart with the usual stuff, dented cans from the bargain bin, a banana, a 24-pack of half-liter water bottles, salmon, a Foster's, when I looked down and saw the cart I was pushing wasn't mine. Everything in it looked too healthy. Apparently, upon returning from some side trip down an aisle, I had just started pushing any old cart that was handy, and it didn't happen to be mine.

I went back several aisles and sure enough, there was a housewife wondering around with her arms loaded with food stuff, looking very annoyed, searching for her cart.

I sheepishly returned her cart to her and took mine, which was standing abandoned nearby. Then upon checking out a short while later, I realized that I no longer had my carton of water placed on the bottom shelf of my cart, just over the wheels. Ah, I thought, so that's where I took over the other cart temporarily, in the water aisle.

So I went looking for the housewife a second time, to ensure that she didn't inadvertently leave the store without noticing the water crate on the underside of her shopping cart. I found her in a checkout lane in an agitated discussion with the cashier about that very crate of water in her cart.

I wondered, as I sheepishly unloaded the miscreant water crate from underneath her cart, if short-term memory is the first thing to go.