I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m a moron. Need proof? Yeah, I got that in spades. But here’s the latest example.

So I went to Lister‘s pad last weekend for his birthday-inspired weekend of gaming madness. We played Amoeba Wars, play-tested a homebrew Kung Fu card/miniatures game (actually, I didn’t participate because I had preparations to attend to, but it looked pretty sweet), then I ran an intro to my Shadowrun campaign (which went quite well I think) followed by a later game of Sucking Vacuum. Good times were had by all, but we were there for a long time.

At one point I needed to wash up a bit so I retreated to the restroom and peeled off my sweat-reeking T-shirt, carefully removed my wedding ring and set it on a table there that usually has several interesting volumes rested atop it, such as Isaac Asimov’s Chronology of the World. As I did this I thought to myself, I need to get these hands washed quickly and put my ring back on or else I’m likely to forget it.

Later I was using my laptop at the gaming table and I noted that my power adapter was lying on the ground next to me. My iBook’s battery is woefully taxed to the point where when I recently ran coconutBattery on it I was informed that the battery’s maximum capacity was about 40% of its original maximum. Since I use the computer at work, it’s pretty important that I have my power cord around. I thought, again, I ought to put that in my bag now so I don’t leave that behind.

Of course I didn’t pick the ring back up after I washed my hands and face and I didn’t put the power cord away when I thought of it and I ended up leaving them both at Lister’s. And—again of course—I didn’t realize I had forgotten them until I was all the way back home, which is roughly an hour to an hour and a half away.

Thus I have been lacking access to some pretty important stuff I have on my laptop (like my login info for WordPress as well as a few work-related files) most of the week.

Being without any real way to use the laptop is bad enough, and I reflected this week on how strange it is that I associate a piece of machinery almost like some kind of extension of my brain. I was noting to someone on IM the other day how what with Google, Wikipedia, OS X’s built-in spellchecker, thesaurus and dictionary and my bevy of bookmarks, calendars and digital sticky notes I really don’t have to actually think very much anymore, it’s more an act of collating the pertinent info and taking appropriate cues.

What is worse is the lack of a ring, which is of course annoying to my wife but also has a mental impact for those whom have grown accustomed to a particular sensation that can’t be replicated any other way. I’m not like some people, I actually remove my ring for various activities like my trips to the gym (certain weight bars don’t treat the ring very kindly nor do they particularly care for the combination of ring, bar and skin pinched between) and washing up. As long as the ring is in a safe place and I know where I can get it, I don’t trip to badly on not having it on. But if I don’t have it and can’t get to it, it makes me nuts not feeling it on my finger.

I was able to retrieve them both last night by making a special trip back to Lister’s which “coincidentally” meant I was around for the regular Tuesday night gaming session during which I challenged Strahd to a Blood Bowl match and actually won 2-0. Considering he was using a blazingly fast team (Skaven) and I was using my plodding, bruising Orcs, holding him to a shutout was quite the feat. I did get some help from a few bad rolls on Strahd’s part where he stumbled on a couple of key dodges that statistically should have been made (one in particular had a re-roll that came into effect after he rolled a one and the re-roll was also a snake eye), but I’ll take ’em however I can get ’em. I’m not a good enough player to be picky.

Anyway, I rectified my moronic display of forgetfulness but it makes me wonder how many other times I’ve done that with less identifiable stuff. I mean, I’m missing one of my favorite black T-shirts right now and I’m starting to think it may be at someone’s house with them going, “Huh. I don’t remember this shirt. Oh well, it’s pretty nice.”

You might ask how I would forget a shirt somewhere, but if you did, I would have to refer you to the previous paragraphs. Obviously you weren’t paying enough attention.