Scatter Brain

At the dinner my 8 1/2 year old nephew cooked over the weekend. My youngest brother, my nephews father, told me his sock story.

My brother has also been somewhat of a scatter brain. Confusion and chaos are always associated with him, sometimes humorous, sometimes causing great concern. He has had more episodes of funny confusion since his stroke at the age of 35. I am not sure it is confusion or a lack of paying attention to details. That's not it either. He just rolls with the punches. Planning is not in his brain calendar. Connecting one project to another, and looking at possible consequences are just not things he has a firm grasp of. The stroke enhanced these minor malfunctions of his personality.

When he arrived at his office one day last week, and was switching from his boots to shoes, his buddy made a comment regarding my brothers socks. Much to Matt's, my brother, embarrassment he had his wife's monkey socks on. To make matters worse the socks did not even match. He was wearing two different monkey socks. The next day Matt paid attention to his socks and made sure he wore his own. During a meeting someone asked if he wore his own socks, everyone chuckled. He stood up and said yes, that the other day was a fluke. While lifting his pant legs to show off his socks, he realized that the socks were in fact his, but one was a dark blue and the other black. Needless to say he was made fun of all day. On the third day, Matt went to work with his own socks on, that were the same color and texture, when he arrived and began to switch from his boots to shoes, he realized that he brought two different color shoes with him.

I am not sure what happened the rest of the week because I was laughing so hard my ribs hurt and excused myself from the table. The conversation continued when I was regaining my composure in the bathroom. Upon returning to the dinner table, my sister in law was reading a very romantic love poem my brother had written for her that week. I guess he pays attention to the details that really matter. I love my scatter brained brother.