This Is Going to Sound Like a Super-Weird Question, But...

This was an actual conversation I had one time.

HD: “Home Depot.”

ME: “Hi. Can you put me through to the garden department?”

HD: “One moment, please.”

Brief hold, then. . .

HD, GD: “Garden Department.”

ME: “Hi. I know this is going to sound like a super-weird question, but I promise this is NOT a prank phone call, so please bear with me. I have ADHD and I confuse the names of stuff all the time, and my mom wants this one kind of flower for Mother’s Day, and it’s some plant name that kind of sounds like — and I do apologize in advance for how this sounds, I promise you I’m not some sort of pervert — but it’s some flower name that sounds like the word ‘clitoris.’ I cannot remember for the life of me what it is called and I don’t dare ask my mom again or she’ll know what I’m getting her. Can you please help me?”

HDGD: “Uhhh . . . could it be a CLEMATIS?”

ME: “Yes! That’s it! Oh my God! Thank you so much! You just saved my life!”

HDGD: “No problem. If you need help finding them, just ask for me — my name is Tracy. I’ll be here ‘til five.”

And . . . SCENE.

I’ve pondered the whys and hows of my glitchy brain for a while. Is my name and word confusion an ADHD thing? Or a Denise thing?

I confuse names all too often. I’ve mentioned this to you before — that whole David Byrne vs. David Lynch and Grace Jones vs. Grace Slick conflation. While the Middle East is currently in a major conflict, I’ll confess one more embarrassing thing. I confuse Iraq with Iran. I know, I know. It IS terrible. I’m not proud of it. Can you imagine me as the comms person directing some military operation where to drop a bomb?

Military Bomber Pilot to Me: “Are you SURE you meant Iraq? Not Iran?

Me: “Um. . . hold that bomb a sec and let me get back to you . . .10-4.” (Do military people say “10-4,” or did I watch Smokey and the Bandit one too many times?)

You get the idea. My brain has some weird iambic pentameter thing going on. I recall syllabic sound patterns, not unlike the family dog. “Go for a drive?” or “Go for a walk?” sounds the same to a dog. Either four-syllable phrase incites vigorous tail wagging.

But it’s not just a syllable thing. It’s also a similarity thing. I conflate weird names, like Treat Williams, Tennessee Williams and Tennessee Ernie Ford. (To be fair, this is probably the first time I’ve used the latter name in a sentence, like, EVER.) Wasn’t it Tennessee Williams who came up with that whole “relying on the kindness of strangers” line?

I’m the in-real-life Blanche DuBois. I do rely on the kindness of strangers. A lot.

People are unusually patient with me. It’s like they sense my vulnerability and the courage I muster — in feigning normalcy — to ask humiliating questions. Like the Home Depot Garden Department, or the deli worker who patiently answered my phone call about potato salad variations:

DELI: “Yeah, we carry potato salad. Do you want regular, sour cream, mustard, or German?”

ME: “Uh. . . (my Doppler-Effect-slow auditory processing kicks in . . . awkward pause) . . . like the kind my mom makes for the church potlucks ? Does that help?”

(I’m so painfully Midwestern. . .)

DELI: “Yep. That’s the mustard kind.”

If only my brain glitches ended there!

When someone asks me if a dollar amount is “Net, or gross?” I cannot answer them. I have to Google which one is which. I. Can’t. Remember. I need to print out this visual aid and memorize it:

My other brain glitch is keeping track of dates and times. The receptionist at my chiropractor’s office laughs with me now when I show up a day early. “Oh! THERE you are!” she’ll chortle. “I was expecting you!”

I was never cut out to be anyone’s admin. I was cut out to employ one. A very patient one.

Part of my issue is time zones. I’m never sure which time of year I should say “EST” or “EDT,” so I write “ET” and hope I don’t come off as too big of a jackass. If I had to book a Zoom call with clients overseas plus U.S.-based Mountain Time zones, I think my brain would short-circuit. This could take me hours to contemplate.

And finally, there’s my numbers glitch. I can remember all addition equations with three exceptions:

• 7 + 5

• 8 + 5, and

• 8 + 6.

It’s mentally exhausting being me, trying to do math.

For those three equations, I have to count it out on my fingers, or tell myself “7 + 6 is 13 and then I subtract 1.” And from what I’ve read, many ADHDers take similar circuitous routes to figure out math problems.

The ADHDers I talk to online — particularly the people in creative fields like me — tend to share one common belief about going through life with ADHD:

We would never trade our ‘creative-flow brains’ for ‘normal’ brains.

I fall in that camp. Just don’t mark us down on an employee review (as happened to me) for having too many post-it-note reminders…