They always say that the mind is the first thing to go. Maybe that is true.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the grocery store with peanut butter on my list. I have very clear memories of standing before the peanut butter display and reaching for the jar of Skippy that was my choice. However, at that point a family friend walked up and started talking. After 30 minutes or so, I continued on with my grocery shopping. I came home and put up my groceries, then took Mom’s groceries over to her house. Never thought a thing about it.

Last week I decided to pull out the peanut butter. I looked on the shelf in the pantry where the nearly defunct jar resides and there was no shiny new companion beside it. Since I could so clearly remember the peanut butter from the previous shopping trip, I decided I must have put it somewhere else. I searched the shelves, but no Skippy appeared. So then I decided that I must have left it at Mom’s house when I dropped off her groceries.

I called Mom and asked “Did I perchance leave a jar of Skippy when I delivered your groceries?”

Her answer was short and sweet: “No.”

After further pondering, I came to the possibility that L had taken the Skippy up to the mountains with her. There is no logical reason for that to have happened, especially since I am a smooth peanut butter fan and L is a chunky kind of gal. (Can you tell I was really grasping at the straws of sanity here?)

I called L and asked “Did you happen to abscond with a jar of peanut butter last weekend?”

Her answer echoed Mom’s. Perhaps even terser a bit more emphatic.

At this point I was slowly coming to the fuzzy conclusion that I must not have purchased the missing Skippy. It bothered me that I had so vivid a memory of picking up the jar of peanut butter but that I evidently had not purchased it. So I pondered some more on whether I had indeed purchased the peanut butter. The pondering left me confused and as I had already disposed of the store reciept, there was no way of telling if I had indeed bought the Skippy. I finally convinced myself that the distraction of visiting with the friend must have led me to not put the peanut butter in my grocery cart. But then why had I crossed it off my list?

So when I went to the store last weekend, I bought a jar of peanut butter. And when I dropped Mom’s groceries off, she called me a bit later to tell me I had left my Trident gum with her groceries. (Of course both she and L were up for razzing me at every opportunity about losing my mind.) But that I already knew about the gum since I remembered the bag it was in that I left with Mom’s groceries as soon as I got home. This time when I unpacked my groceries, I put the peanut butter right beside the nearly empty jar in the pantry. Just to be sure.

Fast forward to last night. I opened the cabinet where I keep the cereal and some paper goods. And as I looked up to the top shelf well above my head where I never before have ever put peanut butter, I saw what looked to be a jar of peanut butter.

Low and behold, it was my missing jar of Skippy. (Pay no attention to the smiling pig paper plate. I know how it got there.) So now I have a bit of extra peanut butter and some faith that I am not totally losing my mind. I did indeed buy the peanut butter the first time, I just didn’t remember where I put it. Does that count as half a mind lost?

I’ll leave it up to you – is my mind gone yet?