As we get older, we are told that it is important to do things like games and puzzles to exercise our brains. I don’t need to do that. My brain exercise starts when I have my daily conversation with a woman I know. She is very sweet and likable, but keeping up with her, conversation-wise, is like making my brain do 100 sit-ups. I know in the long run, my synapses will be healthier, so I work hard to keep up.
Here is a sample of our conversation.
“So, Jane called me and said that Sally is back in the hospital and then she fell and no one found her.”
“Who, Sally?”
“No, Janes’ other sister, Nell.”
“And then, girl, do you know what happened? They put her on an IV for 24 hours.”
“Who, Sally or Nell?”
“No, Jane.”
“I went to visit her because none of her family seems to care.”
“No, Sally. She seems to be all alone.”
“Then, after all this time, he just kept trying to call me and I knew it was him so I didn’t answer. He’s got that problem that he won’t deal with.”
“Who tried to call you?”
“Jim, girl.”
And no, I had no idea what kind of “problem” he had but I assumed that she thought I knew, so I just let it pass. I think my brain was at over 100 sit-ups already. I was exhausted.
I don’t know if some people’s brains are going faster than their mouths or if they expect that I should be able to fill in the blanks on my own.
I really try. I am so alert during our conversations that if someone did a brain scan on me, 95% of my brain would be lit up. The other 5% would be saying “What the heck is she talking about?”.
Since I haven’t been doing my Sudoku puzzles or games in months, I consider these conversations an excellent substitution.
I just wish I knew Jim’s problem.
