Memory is a funny thing when you can't remember something.
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I was at a supermarket over Easter.
The holiday masses had risen from the dead of Good Friday to overwhelm self-service checkout lines on the Saturday morning.
The retail resurrection saw a queue extending nearly all the way down to the bottle shop at the other end of the store.
A drink wouldn't have gone astray at that moment as I questioned why I was there.
Oh that's right, to pick up supplies - like every other individual on the east coast.
"Get in, get out" had been the plan; spend 20 minutes trying to find a park had not.
Getting stuck in a mammoth checkout line - well, let's face it, the plan had been pure folly.
But you move forward, physically and emotionally, toying every now and then with a lurch to a conventional checkout should anyone hesitate.
Eventually got to a register and started 'blipping', which is all good when there's a bar code and the machine doesn't ask if you've got a bag and whether you've put your item in it yet.
Yes, I have a bag, and no, I haven't, because you keep asking if I have a bag. Stupid checkout machine.
The big memory moment came with the fruit and veg.
Generally you have to look those things up which can really throw the "blipping" checkout rhythm, mainly because you have to think!!!
With that, a red light started flashing over my inner register. Damnit, I said, I have a bag. No said my register (was anyone else hearing this?), I think you have a memory problem.
Which I didn't know until I got to the round purple thing.
I'd made it through "b" for brocoli, "c" for cucumber and even the notorious "p" for peach, or is it a nectarine - always hard to tell this time of year when they're both rock hard.
But the round purple thing really threw me. I knew it wasn't a potato, Pontiac or sweet, nor apple or pear, peach or nectarine but that's what kept coming up on the neural dartboard.
It felt like every Trivia night I'd ever been to - a blank look on the face hopefully concealing the tumble weeds within.
I tried to re-route, clear the slate, look away. To the queue of Easter shoppers sweating on me to move so they could checkout back to their Easter long weekend.
Don't panic, I said to myself, it'll come.
Potato, apple, pear, cantaloupe. How could I remember that when I usually struggle with another name for rock melon at trivia night?
Nope, I was drawing a blank, so I finally had to ask the attendant, "Any idea what this is?"
Beetroot, he said, and maybe that was the colour my face went, I don't know.
All I'm willing to concede with my memory is next year, remember not to hit the supermarket on Easter Saturday morning.
