Retrograde amnesia

I swear, that sometimes I get lapses in memory.

Today, Catechol and I were shopping in a Mothercare-like shop for a gift for his sister who just gave birth to a little boy. Amongst the many, many adorable baby thingies, we finally settled on a gift set which we decided was the most value for money as it contains a creeper (don’t ask me why a baby one-suit is called that, when I saw the word I immediately got visions of hundreds of babies creeping along the floor), a bib, mittens and booties. (The other sets contain caps and no booties.)

And then I saw this super cute pair of baby shoes which actually have little elephant soft toys sewn onto them and was nicely packaged in a little bag. But Catechol thought they were not worth it cos they cost almost as much as the set itself, so I jokingly said, “since the uncle is too cheap to buy it, I shall then” and teasingly swung the bag on my finger in front of his face.

Then, we decided to stick with the gift set and after a brief squabble I got to pay for it with my uob card but they only accepted nets, so I took back my uob card and took out my posb card. And because I was wearing a top which showed abit of my midriff despite me tugging at the hem constantly, and because I had a bit of a binge during dinner, I was showing a BIT of a tummy, I very paranoidly and loudly told Catechol to make sure that the price tag is taken off, and the cashier lady smiled and said that she had already done so. We thanked her and left the shop. Just as we were leaving, another shop assistant by the entrance smiled and nodded at us.

And get this, at about ten steps away from the shop, I suddenly realize with a gasp that the bag containing the baby shoes were STILL hanging on my finger! I was in total shock and suffered from a momentary speech loss. When I recovered I was soooooo embarrassed that I pushed the bag into Catechol’s hands and made him return the bag for me, while I hid behind him and grinned shockedly at the shop assistant. And instead of thanking us, she just gave me a weird look and said “ok”. I told Catechol that I felt like a kleptomaniac that had just been forced by her bf to confess to a theft.

Even now, I can’t for the life of me recall how I can hold on to the bag without realizing it. Surely I need two hands during all the card handling and keying in of my pin? And how come both the shop assistants didn’t notice anything?

Maybe they weren’t paying attention because, well, who steals from Mothercare?