I knew this would happen; I’m starting to repeat myself repeat myself

It’s what every aging columnist fears. The day he begins to repeat himself repeat himself.

It happened to me while writing last week’s column. That column dealt with a kid I met on a drive-in movie playground back when I was only nine. Months earlier the kid had been shot in the leg and bore the cool scar to prove it.

I thought the column was kind of clever; not Pulitzer material, but a cute enough story. Turns out it was a story I’ve told before and less than a year ago. I wasn’t plagiarizing myself. I just forgot.

This faux pas was pointed out to me by Sweet Annie, whom I’m seeing again, at least until she wises up. Again. Unlike the Former Lovely Mrs. Taylor, Annie not only reads my column religiously, she remembers what she reads and can recite it back to me months later, long after I’ve forgotten even the topic, much less the content.

I feel I should be forgiven this lapse in memory, however. I’ve been writing this column for over 20 years, every week, rain or shine. That comes to well over 1,000 columns. At approximately 700 words each, that’s over 700,000 words written. How can I be expected to remember them all, and in order?

And this column is only one of many things I write each week. I also write four different horoscopes for an English-speaking newspaper in Russia, news articles for an insurance company website, press releases for a place that sells athletic supplements online, a novel (though not in its entirety), occasional short stories, bad poetry no one will ever see until after I’m dead, return letters to readers of this column, and text messages to my grandson, Edison.

That’s a lot of words. Is it any wonder I can’t remember one column from nearly a year ago?

I know, I know…they do pay me a fair wage for this turkey and—in theory, at least—I should be putting so much thought and effort into each and every entry that there’s no way I could forget one. That’s rarely the way it works in real life, though. In real life, I simply sit down in front of the laptop once a week, usually at a nearby coffee shop, where I am frequently distracted by the cute office girls coming in and out to purchase their daily mocha-frappa-chino-latte-whatevers.

What was I saying?

Oh, yeah. I sit here and write about the first thing that comes into my mind. It takes about an hour and even then I usually write more words than my editor, Mike, really wants to see in any given week. Mike likes about 500 words because they fit into more places throughout the newspaper. I can rarely articulate my admittedly jumbled thoughts in less than 700.

In fact, I just checked and I’m about to pass the 500 mark right now. Or right now. No, now. Now. Yup, that last “now” was it. And I still haven’t figured out whether this column is about my poor memory, my ability to write fewer than 700 words at a time, or the fact I’m dating Annie again. You see my problem.

I probably should have just gone with my first idea; this story about a kid I once met who had been shot in the leg…

Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.