The other day I was trying to figure out if ever, in my lifetime, I had to sprint back into the house three times for things I had forgotten.

I know I’ve run back in twice for things left behind. Keys. My beloved companion, the pen. Head. I’ve made it to the gym only to realize I forgot my gym trunks.

They frown at such behavior, working out in your baggy, dingy, more grey than white jock strap. Gym management feels it attracts the wrong element (divorcees) and, besides. It excites the perverts with the combover hair over on the bench press machine.

Eight’s my magic number.

There was a neat novel back in 1980 — Jean Aeul’s “Clan of the Cave Bear.” They made a movie about it with Darryl Hannah. Ms. Darryl plays the knuckle-biting bodacious hubba-hubba blonde Swedish suntan lotion bikini she-cave babe. One of the film’s persons-of-cave is a kindly but aging shaman. The medicine man. Not the toilet paper. Considering lifespans then, by “aging” the Neanderthal mystic was probably 14. Anywho. He was a really smart guy. You know. Like Republican congressional candidate and city councilman, Jason Gibbs? The shaman could count all the way up to eight. Jason can count far beyond that. Ask him some time. Bring a lunch.

But getting that nosebleed high up numbers’ ladder? It hurt the cave shaman’s head.

Leaving the house in the morning? Eight things is all I can remember to lug out to the car. Eight.

Cell phone. Keys. Wallet. Sippy cup. Reading glasses. Cool sunglasses. MAGA literature on self-responsibility in case I........

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