Proof of mental decay

I have four pairs of specs on the go. One pair packed into a case and carried in my shoulder bag (see pic), one on the desk in my mancave, one on a small side-table in the living room within reach of the couch and one on the bedside chest of drawers. I am thus prepared for any reading task – anywhere - this side of a nuclear attack. How prescient.

Alas, these four pairs of specs also measure my mental decay as times slips by. For instance: I am peering at the monitor through the mancave specs, writing a blogpost, when I am reminded to add “Satsumas” to the shopping-reminder chalkboard in the  kitchen. Forgetting to remove my mancave specs I shuffle downstairs, do the business with the chalk, pass through the living-room and notice VR has finished reading this week’s New Statesman. I sit down and read an improving article on the perils of Brexit; this takes ten minutes.

I glance at my watch and realise it is time to prepare VR’s two slices of Ryvita spread with Philadelphia cream cheese and loaded with defrosted prawns in salad cream, a dozen to each slice. I don’t need my specs for such haute cuisine and I remove them from my nose to put them on the side-table. Only to find a pair of specs already there. The ones I took from my nose belong upstairs in the mancave.

Once I would have indolently left the two pairs on the side-table. Experience scrabbling round the house on an angry specs hunt has taught me I must – Now! At this moment! – go upstairs for the sole reason of returning the mancave specs to their rightful location. But not on the Stannah stair-lift. Such ascents qualify as exercise.