I keep forgetting to remember 

It's not an unusual expression for me. 

Generally, life, when it's not annoying me, confuses the bejeebers out of me. 

But the location of my confusion was unusual. The kitchen is a room in which I am of sure and certain purpose; that purpose generally involving the refrigerator. 

But this time I was in a muddle. I was late for work, and my car keys were nowhere to be found. 

I knew I had put them on the kitchen table the previous night alongside my wallet, ready to be quickly grabbed for a fast trip to another happy workday bringing truth, facts, prudent opinion and the price of stewed tomatoes to the readers of the Times-Journal. 

My wallet was there, packed full of automatic bank teller slips and lint. 

My keys were not. 

Some folks might be disposed to blame themselves, assuming they had misplaced the keys, had forgotten to put them in their proper place, or had mistakenly married a mischievous woman who liked to hide her husband's personal objects. 

None of these crossed my mind. 

Well, maybe one, but I quickly dismissed it after looking through her purse. 

And her car. 

And some of her clothes. 

There could only be one other explanation. 

The new millennium is approaching. 

In previous years, when the number 2000 had less to do with a year and more to do with what was owing on my student loan, inanimate objects stayed put. If I put something in a place, and walked away from that place, I could be assured that upon returning to that place, the object would still be there. 

But as the years progressed and moved closer to the year 2000, I noticed more and more that I could not always depend on that. 

I was not becoming forgetful, so you can forget that right now. In fact, my mind is as quick and agile as it ever was. Just ask my wife, who is always telling me I have the mind of an adolescent (especially when I'm watching Baywatch, throwing popcorn at the TV screen and yelling "Whoo- wee! I need me some CPR") 

So I can only assume that as the new millennium approaches, a strange mystical aura has attached itself to inanimate objects and given them the power of movement. 

And that's why I know that on that fateful morning, my car keys crawled off the kitchen table, slinked and clinked their way into the dirty clothes hamper and nestled into the pocket of the pants I wore the previous day. 

And I have mathematical proof such a thing is possible. And I could work it out for you right now, if only I could lay my hands on that blasted calculator. 

It was here just a second ago.