F2075 Brains

Every now and then, when you get to be my age, you’ll have one of those senior moments. You’ll take your cocker spaniel out for a walk and the little kids will run down the porch steps and cross the yard to come over to pet your dog. The dog seems to attract little kids and women - especially women. In fact, the dog is a “babe magnet,” as they say.

One day a youngster from down at the end of the block came toward the dog and told me that the dog was “a real nice dog.” I had suspected that for some time. So it was reassuring to hear that - even if that opinion came from a youngster. After he petted the dog for a while, he asked me what the dog’s name was. I just stood there.

You see, I was having one of my “Senior Moments,” and the dog’s name had suddenly drifted off into one of those cracks in time. I knew what the dog’s name was just as well as I knew my own name. But for the life of me, I couldn’t recall it just then.

The boy petted the dog again and looked up at me. “What did you say the dog’s name was?” he said. All I could remember was the word, Brains. It was one of my nicknames for the dog, a name that seemed quite appropriate to me after the dog had made a mess on the floor - again - and I had said, “Boy, this dog’s a real Einstein! We should call her ‘Brains.’” And after I had said that, the word Brains had fastened itself onto my own brain to such an extent that often I couldn’t remember her real name anymore.

The little boy looked at me, waiting for an answer. And I looked at the little boy, waiting for my brain to start working again. We stood there for quite a while, looking at each other. He, expecting me to shift into drive and go. And me, turning the key and trying to get the engine started. But nothing happened.

The youngster reached out and grabbed my trouser leg and gave it a short tug. “What’s your doggy’s name, Mister?” He seemed more insistent that time. I just stood there, frozen in that muddy crosscurrent of time, and only the word Brains came to my mind. After I had despaired and given up any hope of recalling the correct name, I told him the dog’s name was Brains. He stood there with the word on his lips, his mouth twisted into a grimace, as if one of those dog doo-doos in the yard had suddenly found its way into his mouth. “Brains?” he said. “Your dog’s name is Brains?”

“Yeah.” I told him. “The dog’s name is Brains.”

The dog and I continued down the street. The boy stood on the sidewalk and watched us. He didn’t run away, or return to his front porch. He just stood and watched, with the two of us on the end of the leash of his vision. The dog and I turned at the corner and I kept turning one word over after another, looking for the one with the dog’s real name on it. And do you think I could remember that name? Ha! Not a chance.

When we got home, I asked my wife what the dog’s name was. She sat there and looked at me as if I had totally lost my mind. “What?”

I said, “Tell me what this dog’s name is,” pointing to the dog.

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Hey, just tell me what the dog’s name is!”

“It’s Zoey,” she said. “What is wrong with you?”

“Zoey! Yeah, that’s it,” I said, beaming. “I couldn’t remember the dog’s name when a little boy down at the end of the street asked me a little while ago. Yeah, Zoey! That’s it.”

She sat there and shook her head from side to side. “I don’t believe you.”

The next day when Zoey and I went for our walk, the little boy was there on his porch again, this time with his mother. He pointed at the dog and said, “Mommy, that doggy’s name is Brains.”

She looked at Zoey. Her lips pursed into a bud. And slowly, ever so slowly that bud blossomed forth into a word. “Brains?” she asked.

I looked at the kid. “Well, at least he remembered the dog’s name,” I thought to myself.