Rule #9: ...Wait, What Was I Going to Type?

I've never had the most reliable short-term memory. I mean, with trivial items, sure. I was a regular Rain Man. Lost the receipt from dinner last night? Got it, down to the centavos. Can't recall the exact time you dropped off that prescription to be filled? 3:18 pm, my friend. How old was I when I ate so much chocolate my nose bled? Four. Always four.

My memory was always photographic enough to make high school and most of college a breeze too. I could close my eyes and see my notebook sheet, doodles and all, to recall enough of it to b.s. my way through any short answer or essay.

But as I grew up and flipped sides of the desk, from student to teacher, and flipped through life roles, from daughter to wife, I became busy, with lots more to multitask more of the time, so forgetful moments became inevitable. You know, forgot to turn in lesson plans by 8 am Monday morning so took them down at 10, or went to visit the mother-in-law and forgot to take that tupperware back for her. The usual. Misplaced keys. A rented movie returned one day late. Mowing over a pile of dog shit you never cleaned up. That type of stuff.

So if you find yourself in any of what I just listed, brace yourself for when Mego Prego Brain hits. When your life role flips once again so that it's standing on edge between non-mother and mother (since you really are in a weird in-between pregnancy purgatory during the 40 weeks it takes for a child to cook up), you will realize that, honey, you ain't seen--or forgotten--nothin' yet.

It's as if pieces of your brain just fall away. Like you've suddenly become someone who smoked crack for a decade and can no longer retain information for longer than five minutes. You'll tattoo yourself with half-assed scribbled attempts to remind yourself of all the important things you need to do, none of which will be helpful since the ink will smear in the sweat you work up when walking from your car to your front door.

I wish I could list for you all of the things I've forgotten just in this past week to demonstrate its impact. But that's just the problem. I've already forgotten what I've forgotten.

And once you've forgotten something for the fifth time, you'll experience an appertaining rage unparalled by any prior experience in your life. Your veins will burn and your eyes will slit and your lip will curl. If you could punch your brain for being such a slacker asshole, you totally would. But you can't, so you'll just growl, loudly. In public. In the middle of the grocery store aisle. And you won't care who sees. Or hears. Or listens. Or backs away slowly, hands in the air.

My Good Pregnant Women, we must call this what it really is: a brain disease. Pregmensia. Bumpheimer's. The life source growing inside you is sucking away your mental powers, and there's nothing you can do about it. There is no cure. Well, I guess there is, actually. If you call birthing a cure. You just have to hope there was no permanent damage done to that cerebral membrane.

Therefore, I announce this to be one area where people really DO need to cut us some slack! I'm developing the next person to enter this world who matters, so don't ask me to remember to bring you in the recipe for my baked macaroni and cheese. Don't tell me a five-digit number to memorize as my new password. And if you even think about handing me papers I need to hold onto for two months, just turn around and walk the other way, then walk back my way in two months when I'll pretend to care a little more.

In the meantime, get yourself a large and very sticky pad of Post-Its and...

Shit. I had something profound for you to write on there, but I forget. F--- it. Milk the stomach and just go nap every chance you get. No one will dare say anything to you.

And thank God for that, since you won't listen or remember what they had to say anyway.