Some people have moody days.

Some people have bad hair days.

I, on the other hand, have Jell-O Head days.

Allow me to explain:  Normally, I consider myself an adequately intelligent, relatively self-sufficient member of the human race.  However, about once every month or two, for some unapparent reason my brain abandons me for the day to go do whatever it is brains do when they’re not in your head and leaves a Jell-O mold in its place.

You know, to take care of all that pesky higher cortical functioning.

And since Jell-O molds are notoriously bad substitutes for brains, I am left with no choice but to lurch through the day, slack-jawed and drooling and generally posing a safety hazard to myself and those around me.

These are the days where I fumble to cram words together into coherent sentences, blank on what year it is, and forget basic personal information like my address, shoe size and middle name.  I put cereal boxes in the fridge and spoon salt into my coffee and squeeze Clearasil onto my toothbrush.  I’m positively stumped on how to spell words like “people” and “because” and spend half the day looking for things that are already in my hand.

On these days, it is only by the grace of God and vigilant adult supervision that I do not venture into public without pants on.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because Monday was just such a day.

It all started when I couldn’t find my car.  Apparently I’d completely forgotten that I’d parked it on the street right outside the apartment door the night before, which means I moseyed right past it in the morning so that I could go blink at the empty space where it’s usually parked for a good 10 minutes or so until I realized what had happened.

Then, upon locating said car, I drove it to the VW dealership for its scheduled maintenance since a service reminder had been popping up on the dashboard display for several days.  However, when trying to explain that to the mechanics, I completely blanked on the word “dashboard” (it’s a tricky one, I know) and ended up telling them that I’d come in “because the blinky thingy told me to.”  As a testament to the fine people at Fitzgerald Automotive, they didn’t even try to capitalize on my moron-itude by overcharging the ever-loving pants off me.

But the pièce de résistance occurred later in the day while applying online for an editor position that sounded absolutely perfect for me.  The company’s ad was lighthearted and whimsical and stressed, above all, the necessity for a sharp eye for detail.  Eager to demonstrate my editorial prowess and, uh, eye sharpness, I spent four hours crafting a charming yet professional cover letter and carefully combing it multiple times over for even the most minute error… only to notice seconds after I hit ‘submit’ that–oh wait, what’s this?  Ah, yes. I’d misspelled the name of the company.  Frick.

Maybe Jell-O head is caused by hormones or a vitamin deficiency or lack of sleep or the phase of the moon.

Maybe it’s early menopause or acid flashbacks or alien technology implanted in my brain.

Whatever the reason is, it should at least come with some sort of hiring preference.