I sing the thing

This morning, I carefully packed a book, scissors, glue, paper, a plastic folder, a long-armed stapler, and a jar full of paper clouds into my bag, my wallet into one pocket, my keys into another, my transport card into another, and a photocopier card into another, and with no further ado, and a minimum of fuss, walked out the door.

All very pleasing and specific you might think, especially the jar of paper clouds. As I was halfway down the street to the tram stop, however, it occurred to me that I had forgotten to pack the thing.

Just what the thing was I can't say exactly, because I had also forgotten what the thing I had forgotten to pack was. It's quite frustrating, you see, because I always seem to be forgetting to pack the thing, whatever the thing is, or was, that I had been forgetting to pack. Of course I suppose you could say that the thing that I forgot to pack last time (whatever it was (or wasn't)) was a different and discrete thing to the thing that I had forgotten to pack this time (whatever it is (or isn't)). But who's to say that the thing that I forgot to pack this time isn't the was or wasn't the is that I had forgotten last time? Or, for that matter, that the thing that I had forgotten to pack the time before the time before wasn't the same as the other two things (or was in fact a completely new thing) that I had forgotten?

In case I'm making too much sense, my lack of a point is this: it's bloody irritating to keep forgetting the thing, and also to forget what it is that you have forgotten. The anxiety caused in thinking about whatever the thing is after you have left the place where you should have remembered to pack the thing, whatever the thing you should have remembered to pack is, is a very anxious anxiety indeed. There ought to be a law against it. Thank you.