Senior Moments

Fantasy Bob has been sitting at his keyboard for some time intending to share with his dwindling handful of readers an amusing anecdote revealing the impacts of the accumulating years on his mental faculties.  But he has totally forgotten what the incident was.

So this one will just have to do instead.

FB punched his PIN into the ATM - itself an heroic act of memory - pressed the buttons asking for cash and waited. The machine bleeped.  FB took his card, slipped it into his wallet and turned to continue up the road.

It was 5 minutes later that he had a vague feeling of unease.  He looked in his wallet. Empty. Not a freshly acquired bank note in sight.  The excitement of remembering his PIN had simply been too much for him and he had failed to take his money from machine.

He retraced his steps to the bank and shamefacedly explained his lacuna to the teller.  She was sympathetic.  She suggested he sit down.  The manager was called.  Did they fear a medical emergency? Forms were filled in and duly signed.

Within a day FB had received confirmation that the transaction had been cancelled. 

The transaction may have been cancelled but FB's memory of his senior moment has not.  Indeed it has haunted him ever since.

Happening as it did just as the start of the cricket season is appearing above the horizon, this senior moment has filled FB with all kinds of apprehension.  Is the new season going to be dominated by such incidents?

Will FB one fine Saturday suddenly find himself in the middle of an expanse of grass with a piece of wood in his hand and say to himself, 'I know I came here for some purpose - but what on earth was it?'

At least on that scenario FB will have remembered to take his bat with him - he recalls an incident a season or so ago in which an opposing senior player arrived at the crease with pads, gloves and helmet all in approximately the correct place, only to find that his attempt to take guard was hampered by the absence of a bat.  As the batsman returned to the distant pavilion to retrieve his blade, FB faced the dilemma of whether to invoke the timed out law and claim the wicket.  Good sportsmanship prevailed. But it was time wasted, for the unfortunate batsman might as well have gone on without his bat since it was little use to him as he was spectacularly bowled first ball - his bat in hand no nearer the ball than it was in the pavilion.

Similarly, a lung bursting run to the boundary could leave FB with a slightly troubled look on his face as he asks an adjacent spectator - 'Why did I come down here?'

Even at the best of times FB's journeys to the boundary are filled with uncertainty of purpose and outcome.  In the unlikely event that he reaches the ball before it crosses the rope, he is faced with the challenge of how to return it without doing serious damage to his shoulder or, even worse, making a laughing stock of himself to the junior members all of whom without effort can throw the ball from one end of the ground to another.

And then, FB may look around the dressing room at his fresh faced colleagues and think, 'These people all seem familiar, but I have no idea who they are.'

Setting out his batting order with an insecure grasp of his team's names is no pleasure and scorers recoil from an order composed of 1. Small boy with glasses 2 . Older chap with gormless look 3. I-Pod addicted teenager................. and so on to 11..................

Indoor nets?  Bootcamp physical training?  Maybe, but FB needs an intense few weeks of mental gymnastics to get him through the season