Thankfully, the one young man and woman in the building were really good about it. She was the neuropsychologist, and he was the one giving me the tests. I brought along a folder of paperwork from my school counseling sessions going as far back as 1987 my mother kept for future reference.
Adam, the young man, spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon giving me a series of verbal and writing tests. They were mainly to test my memory and cognitive functions. I couldn't remember or figure out a lot of the random patterns involving shapes, squiggly lines, and putting cards with those symbols into a board. My math must have been worse. I can't really remember how to do fractions or long division or multiplication, and especially my old bane, long division.
Broke to have a salad for lunch in their waiting room (apparently, there was no other place to eat), then went back to matching symbols and doing math and listening to tests to tell if you can tell apart certain sounds like f and th. They finished by giving me paperwork with a series of questions on my mental condition the past few weeks...which, as you may have noticed, hasn't been great. I'm dead tired, under enormous stress, and have lost my home and a lot of family.
At least the tests ended a lot earlier than expected, around 2 instead of 3:30. Since it was a nice day, sunny, windless, and probably in the lower 60's, I went for a stroll in the area. The office complex was situated next to a very uninteresting shopping center that mostly seemed to consist of a pet grooming store and a huge gym. I considered a snack at Panera Bread before deciding I'd wait until home, and I didn't feel like braving the traffic to check out a huge Target across the street.
Strolling in the opposite direction revealed a sign for the Voorhees Towne Center. I thought it would be easier to get picked up there than the slightly hard-to-find office complex. Enjoyed my quiet walk past 70's and 80's-era apartments in yellows, blues, and reds and a nice little park and baseball diamond.
The Voorhees Towne Center isn't nearly that charming. Like the office complex, it suffers from being in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by way too much competition, plus I think it's currently owned by a company that doesn't care about it. The whole area was silent as a ghost town. It was eerie. I saw maybe four people the entire time I was there, and that includes in the newer area with the condos and the restaurants.
I felt creepy just ducking through the main mall. It's dark and still. The only light or movement came from Bath and Body Works and Boscov's. Everything else - the arcade, the food court, the comics store, Friendly's, even Lens Crafters and the medical offices - had closed. It was like they never existed. The entire area was one big void. I ducked out at the main entrance, but forgot I didn't have any paper money on me. I called Uber home as quickly as I could.
Got home around 3:30. Had a snack and worked on writing. Queen Helen explains how everyone in Looking Glass Land can remember things forwards and backwards. She's about to tell Brett what terrible fate will befall Sir Richard when she yells about pricking her finger on her pin...but there's no blood. She'll prick it in a few minutes.
Had leftovers for dinner, then spent the rest of the night on YouTube. The owner of the Match Game channel has been really busy lately. He finally got to that much-delayed marathon honoring the late black comedian Scoey Mitchilll he promised over a week ago. As I mentioned during my own marathon a week and a half ago, Scoey's tough demeanor allowed him to get away with a lot of gags the others couldn't dream of. Once, he and Charles not only sat in each other's seats, but took the other's personalities. Another time, he ran out during a question to use the bathroom. During the syndicated run, he took a nap during a question against Gene's entrance door; Gene even brought him a pillow. There was also the time he sat and watched while Gene tore off his t-shirt advertising a local radio station.
Come check out the best episodes from the toughest man to ever answer a blank-ing question!
No comments:
Post a Comment