My wife’s ‘menofog’ is causing carnage

And there they were, sitting between the Sunday roast leftovers and a pint of milk, the car keys to the Fiat Panda.

They were the same set of keys that my wife had been frantically looking for earlier that day, causing chaos in the house and disrupting everyone’s morning schedules, as we were all co-opted into joining the fruitless search, which would end with me delaying my work until after I’d got back from dropping my wife at hers.

Clearly, she had left them on the fridge shelf in exchange for her overnight oats and it made me chuckle to see the juxtaposition of keys and Fruit Corners, however this was just the, rather comical, tip of the iceberg otherwise known as my wife’s “Menofog”, of which she has a serious dose.

“Menofog”, “mentalpause”, “perifog” or “menobrain”, to give it its many other monikers, is the condition often experienced by women going through menopause which leads to bouts of absent-mindedness and lack of focus. And I’m totally sympathetic to what my wife is currently experiencing; I’m not the type of bloke who feels that the menopause is something that is “hers” to get on with and that it shouldn’t trouble me or make me late for my game of golf.

Davina McCall’s menopausal handbook has been top of my bedside reading pile for many months and my wife and I talk about what she is experiencing daily and how I might be able to support her through it, but of all the many other delightful symptoms that my wife has to endure, the “fog” is the one that’s really starting to have an impact on our household.

A couple of days before the car key incident, I was at work when I got a WhatsApp from my son asking, “Where’s mum?”

She was supposed to be taking him to football, a crucial cup game, but was nowhere to be seen. I tried to call her but there was no answer and when I viewed the location of her smartphone it was at the gym, where she had booked a class, after completely forgetting that it was her responsibility that day to get our son to his game.

“Blagged a lift with George’s dad,” came the WhatsApp from my lad soon after, as the crisis was narrowly averted.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t an isolated incident. There have been plenty of other times where she has totally forgotten to pick up or drop off and it’s not just our family’s travel plans that have been disrupted.

There have been air fryers cooking, with nothing in them. Taps left running. Irons left on. And, most recently, I got a call from a neighbour telling me that our dog was currently running around our street and its lack of road sense meant that it was only a matter of time before it ran in front of a car.

Clearly, my wife had let him out to do his business and then left for work without letting him back in again.

So, it’s safe to say that it’s starting to be a bit of an issue for us all, not least my wife who is starting to get quite down about it.

Which is why we’ve decided to be more proactive and fight the fog, adding lifts to and from clubs, matches, sleepovers etc to a big organiser chart in the kitchen, which has resulted in a massive drop in stranded children.

Taking the dog out in the morning, rather than just letting him out, has resulted in a massive drop in the likelihood of him ending up as roadkill.

And we’ve also decided to stop making such a big deal of those times when the fog does descend. After all, who wants room-temperature car keys when you can have them nicely chilled.