When leaving my apartment I stop, clear my head, and watch myself lock the door. If any other thought but locking the door enters my mind, the unlocked the door is all I’ll think of when miles from home.  Imagine, if you will**, my feelings when finding the door locked upon my return. Every, $^&%$%ing time.

The same thing happens at my favorite walking trail: If I don’t pay attention when exiting the car, when I am the farthest away from the car on my walk the unlocked car door will torment me until I get back…and find the car door locked. Woe, is me.

During the walk there is a $200 google Pixel tracking watch on my wrist, but I find myself counting steps. Out loud. The count gets to about 80 before I notice and stop it by focusing on something like politics or music. Shortly after, I’m counting, again, and the process repeats.

The brain is a funny thing. Am I getting some form of early onset Alzheimer’s? Or is there a mind-power struggle going on?

If you remember past essays, I am made up of TB, IV, OV and BB***. IV, the Inner Voice, is always the one pestering me about the locks and the steps and other minute items/steps often overlooked by BB, the Big Brain, the overall conductor of everything. BB likes to ignore minor IV warnings since TB, The Body, actually seems to run on its own, without unnecessary instruction. Warning BB to watch TM lock the door after 60 years was not needed, as TB understood to do it after short, historical BB training ending somewhere around 1965. There is specific incontrovertible evidence TB is doing all of its assigned work, including its locking job.

Logic, says then, TB is not the cause of the locking problem, right? BB and OV, the Outer Voice, should be ignoring IV’s false alarm warnings of unlocked doors that are actually locked. TB did its job, so why is IV starting gossip about it? And why is BB listening?

As for the counting of steps, it appears OV is doing the same thing IV did but out loud. BB knows the google watch is counting the steps, so BB should ignore OV, as well as IV. Do they not trust each other and work together, anymore?

Sounds like a simple fix. Communicate correctly or get fired. There’s plenty of IVs, OVs, and TBs looking for work, these days.

So why does the needless crap keep happening? And why is BB troubled about it all? Pull the trigger and clean house.

No idea, but after this careful analysis, it’s safe to say I am not cognitively impaired, possibly OCD, or suffering from any affliction but the unnecessary affirmation of needless warnings from IV and OV. Maybe crossed wires and/or organizational communication.

And if that result is a conclusion from a thoughtful BB, why do IV and OV warnings still set off cognitive warning signals?

And…who is writing this essay?

Maybe we need a little more time to sort this out.

*Hope you’re old enough to remember. But why am I still remembering these ads? Ai says the ads started in 1972 and ended completely in the early 1980s. Is there a large junk file somewhere inside me?

**Another memory issue: this phrase associated with The Twilight Zone, was never used by Rod Serling. Ever. So, “You are about to enter a Fifth Dimension: The Twilight Zone.” Is really the pertinent quote from Rod.

***No idea of what you are made of. You have any idea?