VegemiteGrrl's Home for the Absent-Minded

Welcome to Vegemite Grrl's Home for the Absent-Minded, where you can tell tales of putting milk in the pantry/driving to the store and then forgetting what you went there to buy/looking for your glasses for 20 minutes before you realize you're wearing them/etcetera without fear of reprisals*.
*Polite and or incredulous laughing and headshaking are par for the course and to be expected.

I hope I'm not the only one who fills this full of tales. Oh I have so many. Here's today's:

I have a cool hoonjadoonja that I plug my iphone/ipod into so that it will play through the car stereo. It's awesome.
...Except for when I put my phone/pod in my pocket without unplugging it and go to get out of the car. That's when I feel a sharp tug and a) my phone flies out of my pocket onto the ground still plugged in, or b) the rest of the device that plugs into the console rips out and I notice a cord coming out of my pocket and go "OHH RIGHT".

Hangs head.

Welcome, one and all.

Recently my wife emailed me at work a digital photo of our utility drawer. Where I had replaced the scissors I had used to cut open a cheese package. And where I also placed the cheese.

<3 welcome. You are among friend/s, Dan.

Today I let a no knead bread rise for 10 hours too long, then when I dumped it out on the workspace to salvage, discovered I had used twice as much water as called for. The white, pasty, wet gloop spilled all over everything.

Goes to supermarket to get one specific item I'm out of (toilet paper, margarine, water, coffee, stuff you need every day), returns with a car filled with everything on the shopping list, except that one thing I needed. But I did cross it off the list in the store. Why do I even make lists?

oh god I do that so much

hi

Today I was in the kitchen holding the baby and trying to rinse a dish. Next thing I know I am in the bedroom and could hear water running because for some weird reason I forgot to turn of the kitchen faucet.

I shall try to spare this thread my continuing adventures in never being able to remember if I locked the front door, but I'm sure I'll have many other things to bring here :(

yesterday I forgot to check there was nothing sitting on top of the fishtank (which is too close to the wall to look behind and too heavy and full of fish to move) before opening it, and had to sheepishly ask if the birthday card I rescued just in time was the only thing that had been there, or if I had lost anything useful

Goes to supermarket to get one specific item I'm out of (toilet paper, margarine, water, coffee, stuff you need every day), returns with a car filled with everything on the shopping list, except that one thing I needed. But I did cross it off the list in the store. Why do I even make lists?

i do this all the time but last week outdid myself when i left the house to get a couple of essentials and somehow completely forget to go to the shop at all. i think i literally just wandered around for a bit listening to nicki minaj and got distracted by a market with nice food.

This one time after making a cup of tea I put the kettle in the fridge, and had to re-arrange quite a lot of stuff in there to make it fit.

Three times a day I wander around my classroom for four or five minutes trying to locate something I've set down--my clipboard, student work, my coffee, a red pen, etc. Yesterday I left the coffee cup in the supply cupboard. As I look for these things, usually muttering to myself, five students will come up to me in the interim with a question about something; "Hang on," I'll say tersely, as I wave them away before continuing my search.

I once somehow misplaced a pen in my pocket. Yes, in my pocket. I totally couldn't find it, so grabbed another pen and put it in there. Then at the end of the day, I found two pens in my pocket.

I've got one pen in my pocket
And the other one...correction--two pens in my pocket.

This one time after making a cup of tea I put the kettle in the fridge, and had to re-arrange quite a lot of stuff in there to make it fit.

This one made me giggle like mad.

That's like me putting a coffee pod in the machine and hitting "brew" and not realizing I hadn't put a cup under the spout. Did that in full view of my manager once.

I caught myself one morning about to pour milk in the water-tank of the espresso maker. O_o

i love these. esp the cheese one.

Mr Veg has this one particular look he gives me when these things happen. It's like a cross between abject concern for my mental health and sheer unbridled amusement at my ridiculousness.

Had to get up early today for work, closed (usually always open) bedroom door so wife could sleep in. After breakfast, remembered something I had to get from wardrobe, ran full-tilt into bedroom door in the dark, bent glasses/nose/knee. Now knee hurts in the cold, and I have become an old man.

not to mention woke up your wife rather abruptly, I would imagine

oh James owwww

turned out she was awake all along

The best friends an absent-minded person will ever have are habits so deeply rutted, so acidly etched upon the brain cells as to be automatic, and utterly and mechanically reliable. For example, I trained myself never to close a car door unless the keys to the car are enclosed in my fist. I verify this over and over, habitually. Even when I am not the driver.

i can't even count the amount of times that i've frantically scrambled around the house searching for my keys before realizing they're in my back pocket

Yep aims I do that too, I developed a "look back at the seat I just got up from" habit when exiting trains/cafe seats/etc to ensure i dont leave behind bags or umbrellas. I put my keys in a spot, same spot, no matter what when I come home.

That would be a better approach than my current 'keep everything in your pockets at all times, thus carrying 2kg of crap on your hips at all times' method

haha omg, im a fucking space cadet: after riding to work one day i took the subway home carrying my bicycle helmet, walked in the door and saw the empty spot on the wall where my bike usually goes and shouted "holy shit! where's my bike??". I set up for a performance that i completely forgot i was performing in. and i have (more than once) walked about 5 blocks from the house before i realized i was supposed to be checking the mail. fucking hippie parents man. they ruined me.

dude...I so feel you on this.

I carpool with Mr Veg & usually have the car, but every now and then he'll drop me at work and take the car. Inevitably on those days I will grab my keys at lunchtime, walk all the way out to the parking lot where I usually park my car and then go 'where the fuck is my ca----oh wait I don't have the car today'.

My housemate forgot to go to one of his best mate's wedding. I think thats pretty stellar.

I lose stuff all the time - when it comes around the time for hat and scarf, I will always go through 1-2 of both before they settle in 'on the inventory' and I know to check for them on getting up from wherever I've been. And then when it is no longer time for hat and scarf, there's a few weeks of occasional panic that I've left them somewhere, fading into more existential dread that I've left something somewhere, but what?

my worst, most horrifying absent-minded moment was when I was immigrating to the States. I took a flight that had 24 hour layover in Japan, so that necessitated going through customs etc. So as I'm preparing to re-embark on my journey after the layover, I've gone through the security check where they've x-rayed my carry on luggage etc etc and I'm now standing in line at customs, holding my passport and boarding pass waiting to get my passport stamped.

As I'm standing in line I see a Japanese airport guard walking along the length of the room, holding up a black satchel. He's not saying anything, just displaying it, walking back and forth along the lenght of the room. He walks by again and this time I notice the bag and think, huh that's a similar bag to mine. I look down, and realize that I AM NOT WEARING MY CARRYON BAG IE BLACK SATCHEL HOLY FUCK THAT'S MINE and I bolt after the guard to meekly reclaim my important possessions. ie wallet money, phone, everything I own.

I still get a wave of nausea thinking about that.

Needless to say I'm ridiculously ocd about my belongings when I travel now

ACE thread

on sunday I spent fully 15 minutes looking for the keys that were in my back pocket

oh and the thing where I'll be looking for 'er indoors in a shopping centre/street and repeatedly not see her standing right in front of me (this happens weekly)

your bag story is terrifying btw, the worst possible thing to lose at the worst possible time

oh and yesterday I put a bottle of olive oil in a calico bag and realised 10 minutes later that I hadn't put the lid back on

i don't know why but my most advanced displays of absent-mindedness involved bathtubs. I once switched on the tap to start myself a bath. While waiting for the tub to fill up I started doing other things and then decided I needed to do my grocery shopping. which took me about a half hour. I came back to a well-flooded apartment and some very angry neighbors. Another time, same thing, tub filling up and I start watching a movie. After a while I realised that the sound of water flowing that I was hearing did not come from the movie but from my bathroom where luckily the tub had only just a bit overflowed. And for some absent-mindedness that did not involve tubs, there's the day I went outside my flat to throw away the garbage. The door to my flat shut behind me. I then noticed I didn't have my keys. So I start knocking on the door hoping my flatmate hears me. Then after 10mns I remember that he's not home. So I go knock at our neighbor's place to see if I can hang out with him until my flatmate returns. Neighbor wasn't there so I spent 1 hour waiting outside my apartment only to see my flatmate return and open the door without a key. That's when I remembered that unless you used your key, the door isn't locked.

oh god your airport story VG

once when i was coming back from atlanta, i went through customs as normal, including taking my laptop out of my hand luggage for the scanner as is standard. got out the other end, got my stuff together, took the little train thing from customs to the terminals, settled down in the lounge and decided i had time to go on the internet and OMG WHERE IS LAPTOP. i'd just walked off from customs without it!!!! luckily i had enough time to take the train back, endure the mocking laughter of the officials as i reclaimed it etc.

yesterday i popped out to the shops, halfway down road realised i'd forgotten my wallet, duh. nothing new here. got home, decided to change my coat as well cuz it wasn't as cold as i thought it would be, left house again, got to the shop and realised i had STILL FORGOTTEN MY WALLET. goddddddddddd

the whereabouts of my keys are also a permanent mystery to me - even though i actually HAVE a designated place i always put the fucking things all the time in order to prevent scenarios like, eg, having to cancel social engagements because i can't find my keys anywhere (this happens on a regular basis).

My daughter, who's now 22, still remembers the trauma of us heading out to something important when she was about 7 and we were seriously delayed by my inability to locate my keys.

To this day, whenever I'm looking for something, she suggests 'the vegetable rack'

oh man just remembered one from when i was a kid (around 8-9). I had football practice with my brother. once it was over, i walk back to school talking with a friend (that's a 15minute walk). when i arrive at school you're supposed to register upon arrival so i give me and my brother's name. the guy looks at me strangely and i don't understand why. then he asks me where my brother, whom i'm registering, is. he was by the football field patiently waiting for me to take him to school.

I left my passport by the sink in the airport toilets once. Got back to the gate where the plane was about to leave and realised and ran back to the toilets in a panic not even knowing if I'd had it when I went there. Luckily it was still there and the plane hadn't gone yet. If someone had nicked it, or even helpfully handed it in at some kind of central desk far away from my gate...

(I have hated airports since the time I missed my plane because the queue for the security scan was going really slowly, and there are no clocks or flight announcements in the security area so I didn't know my flight was being called, and anyway there were no staff around to ask to be let through faster. You don't get a refund for that, the staff just look at you like you're a moron and then you have to go and pay for a new flight. I still feel it was not quite my fault, but uh, I could have been checking the time more instead of just standing where I was told and assuming that since I hadn't heard my name on the completely silent tannoy it was all fine)

xps I can't have a leather wallet like a grownup, I need one of those canvas skater type ones cos leather wallets don't have anything to attach one's keys onto and whenever they get seperated I lock myself out of places at basically the first opportunity

I have actually done the thing that you're really not supposed to be able to do any more - due to poor ticket checking on the part of the steward, got on the wrong plane and only realised when there was fortunately someone already in 'my' seat.

I've just this evening missed a flight to my parents place because I completely blanked on the concept that I was travelling to the airport in peak hour traffic, and didnt factor that in to my timing :( Fuckin.

I feel like a complete dickhead. Luckily they allowed me to move to the first thing tomorrow morming flight for only a small extra fee.

Ive never missed a plane in my life, I'm always meticilously early to airports, so I am really mad at myself.

far out :(

Put an electric kettle on the hob over christmas. Haven't had a hob kettle for about 5 years.

has anyone else ever...forgotten to put their shoes on when leaving the house?

couple of years ago i was actually on the tube, one stop away from my house, when i realised i was still wearing my slippers. never felt so self-conscious as when i had to go back and shuffle home to put my shoes on :(

The only thing that has stopped me from leaving the house without shoes is my husband asking why I was going to work without them.

xxpost aw Trayce that suuucks :(

re slippers to work: I've come as close as getting in the car with my slippers on before realizing

I bike to work and pack my clothes in a bag each night before. Cannot tell you the number of times I've forgotten socks, belt, underwear . . .

I still get a wave of nausea thinking about that.

― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl)

Sisters, truly! I put all my stuff down to go through the xray machines etc at the Toronto airport when I flew to London at 17 for summer break. I collected my stuff, put my headphones back on (I was travelling alone) and walked the 45 ridiculous minutes to the lounge for my flight. Sat down near a cute boy, took my headphones off to ask him some BS question to break the ice (I was a teenage playa) and then heard 'Alexis FFM, please report to security..' at which point I realized I'd left my passport with them. Had to run back and then back to the lounge, made the plane within a few minutes, felt like I was going to die (and that maybe I shouldn't go to London by myself!)

re: keys and habit, i've locked myself out so many times that my keys are now attached to my bag with a lanyard. i'm constantly checking that they're there...but haven't lost my keys/locked myself out since!

my friend left her passport in an airport bathroom once, and it wasn't there when she went back to get it. (which she only realized she didn't have because we were boarding) and as she was running around panicking, this cleaning lady came up and started lecturing her in chinese (we were in beijing) and gave her her passport, thank god.

also i don't know if this is an age thing, but i'm constantly losing my train of thought in the middle of sentences. makes me feel really dumb. ahh!

Wasn't there a study that found door amnesia? doorway amnesia? to be a thing? I think it it basically said that the human memory is kind of like a computer where you have memories on the hard disk but some are stored in a kind of virtual memory and when we walk through a doorway we drop the virtual memories to make room for storing information from the new environment.

Sunny speaks truth. Now it's time for her to share some of her stories.

Anyway I think they made some people look at stuff on a table then walk through a door then another back into the room and remember how stuff was placed or gave them a task to do and they just forgot opposed to the peeps who didn't walk through doors. Anyway, it seemed like a lot of shite but id still like to blame my forgetfullness on lame human make up.

we'd be here for a week xp

btw did you get that cord to your co-worker?

No. Years from now, they'll find that box with all my electrical stuff and think "Boy, he sure liked cords."

Here are a few of mine:

• Left bass guitar and Ampeg amplifier in back of pick-up while grocery shopping.

• Walked down the path to my house from the driveway after being out and seeing my cats looking at me through the screen door.

• Lots of groggy waking-up, rubbing eyes, brushing teeth, taking a shower, drying off and finally looking at the clock that says 2:26 AM.

And I've got a buddy visiting in San Francisco right now who texted me last night saying he was about to go to the airport. He was correct in booking the flight home for 12:30 Friday. He just neglected to tell the airline that he preferred PM, not AM.

i once left a piece of jack kirby original artwork on a train - and recovered it from lost property!

also i don't know if this is an age thing, but i'm constantly losing my train of thought in the middle of sentences. makes me feel really dumb. ahh!

sometimes i think that i'm not actually going to be able to tell if/when i do go senile. how would i know the difference?

xp lol i have booked a train ticket for 5.30am rather than 5.30pm before. i wondered why it was oddly cheap ;_;

• Left bass guitar and Ampeg amplifier in back of pick-up while grocery shopping.

;_;

Having had instruments stolen from locked vehicles twice, this one just makes me cringe.

The look on my face when I came out with the groceries and there was my rig must have been quite priceless.

sometimes i think that i'm not actually going to be able to tell if/when i do go senile. how would i know the difference?

I've actually asked a doctor this.

Part of the treatment for some Alzheimer's patients is to furnish their domicile with things that are familiar to them. So a man's kitchen might have an old oven and old refrigerator with the pull-down handle. Maybe an old analog radio with the needle on the dial.

I think about spending my 2040s in a room with a Playstation 2 and a turntable, and get very peaceful about the whole aging process.

I belong here.

When I was in high school I worked at a small supermarket, and one of my crap jobs on weekends was to peel potatoes in the deli when we weren't busy at the checkouts. One shift I was peeling away, got called to the checkout to help, and returned about 40 minutes later to find two angry produce boys mopping up a giant flood, created by me leaving the tap running. The entire deli was flooded. Thank GOD it was a Sunday and both the bosses were out, I would definitely have been fired.

I left my engagement ring on the sink in our apartment and went to work, twice. Oh god the incredible panic I felt at realizing it wasn't on my finger nor anywhere in sight. I looked everywhere, completely freaked out, held back tears and called my then-fiance, who thankfully was home both times to confirm it was safe in the bathroom.

I lost a lovely expensive watch that my mother gave me. So she bought me another one, exactly the same. Which I then lost. Guilt was huge on that one.

Been waiting a coupla years to tell this story on ILX...OK so I'm at the grocery because I'm craving Heinz pork-and-beans, and I'm frustrated 'cause on the shelf there's 20 red-labeled cans (meaning beans in molasses sauce, which I don't want) and not a single blue label (tomato sauce, my preference.) So I look closer and way at the back is a single blue can - yay! - so I grab it and then read haricots blancs à la sauce tomate (lol Canada) and I think "aw shit, one can left and it's French!"

It takes me a few seconds to register: "Idiot, just turn the can around and you can read the English side of the label."

It takes a FURTHER few seconds to realize, more to the point, that I'm buying the BEANS, not the label.

My stupidest one is probably when I borrowed a friends car to drive to a gig in Glasgow at the Barrowlands, I don't know Glasgow super well but I gather it's not in the most salubrious part of town. Parked the car on a busy road and walked the half mile to the venue, stopping in at a chip shop on the way. Went in and walked through the recently installed metal detectors. Hmm I thought, curious they didn't beep, what with my car keys in my pocket... oooooooohhhh shiiiiiiittttt. Ran back to the car, checking I hadn't left them in the chippy on the way. There they were, still in the driver's door. Was probably slightly lucky in that I'd parked with the door on the road side, not the kerb side.

Later on in the year I crashed his car into a roundabout in the early hours of the morning. Good times!

Hah, got a new iPhone (because I lost the old one, of course) last week, and got a delivery slot of 6-10pm. Came home in a hurry, busied myself writing my magnum opus playing Batman: Arkham City, and then the delivery man knocked on the door and gave me my iPhone... and a pitying look as he indicated my keys still in the door.

My wife and I have gone out to dinner and left the front door to our house wide open at least once.

left the keys in a locked car with the engine runnning on more than one occasion

Also, MVB's story reminds me of Homer Simpsons' "Oh, there's only one can of beer left, and it's Bart's!"

I was commuting to work and had like 3 bags, and my iphone was in my lap. The train stops at times square and I stand up to get out with everyone else. Somehow because of the angle and because I was sitting right next to the doors, I didn't realize that my phone was not in my pocket until I saw it slide neatly into the gap between the train and the platform edge. Everyone around me gave me these expressions of 'oh shit, that sucks.' I was already late for work but I had to stay there and wait for the train to leave (which took a while, since it was the last stop). Luckily after it left, an MTA employee was already down on the tracks and he picked it up and gave it to me. Now I compulsively grab my phone every time I enter or exit the train.

Was thinking some more about this stuff and it has become so much more awful and panic-inducing since having a kid. I know myself well enough to know I need to CONSCIOUSLY THINK about doing the buckles up in the car seat, for instance, otherwise I will just forget. Add the very real phenomenon of baby brain into the mix, and I am a nervous wreck a lot of the time, trying to avoid leaving my child behind in a car park or watching as he swallows the bottle of medicine from the cupboard I forgot to close.

the first year we moved into our house I was TERRIBLE for leaving my keys in the front door. not cool even under normal circumstances, even more so since we were on the edge of sketchy neighborhood and occasionally would find bums plonking themselves down on our front porch for the evening.

like there were times when I'd open the front door in the morning and find the keys still in the front door from the night before.

I don't believe in guardian angels but I feel like the universe is expending an awful lot of energy to protect me from myself.

the most O_O instance of that was when I was living in Melb, walking out of a bookstore on a busy street, after work so there's lots of foot traffic. I fumble to put my change in my purse and I go next door to a cafe. As I'm standing in line for coffee I look in my wallet and realize that i'm missing a $50 note. Fuck. I dropped it. Well, I should go look but no doubt it's gone by now.

I walk out of the cafe, and in the middle of the footpath (which is swarming with people), sitting on the ground in front of the bookstore is my $50 note.

THANK YOU BABY JEBUS OR SATAN OR ODIN

Ah yes there was the time I was going to a saint etienne gig, met up with some people at the pub beforehand, at some point realised I'd left my ticket at home. Fortunately it was only a 15 minute bus ride and there was more than an hour before the gig, ok a minor annoyance especially given it was raining, but y'know, grin and bear it. So I get the bus back home, find the ticket, put it in my pocket, get the bus back to the pub, check in my pocket again as you do - wtf. No ticket. Did it fall out? Did I hallucinate putting in my pocket? So I get the bus back home again, thinking "argh/wtf/you idiot" the whole way. Retrace my steps and there, in the gutter outside my flat flowing with rain water, is my ticket.

Another one, may not be absent mindedness but it still puzzles me to this day. Get the plane tickets from the travel agent, inside the cardboard wallet. Fold the wallet inside the paper itinerary, put the bundle in my jacket pocket. Get home, take the bundle out of my pocket, unfold the itinerary, get the wallet, open it up... no tickets. Nor were they still back at the travel agents.

Have also lost at least two passports, one just before going on holiday. It had been recently renewed and I still had the old one, now expired and with a corner cut off. Discovered you can still travel on them, in the EU anyway, if they're less than 12 months out of date. Only had one problem, boarding the plane back home the flight attendant thought this was not proper, but after a couple of minutes just let it go.

A couple times I have been pouring boiling water for coffee or tea and not even looked at the cup, and poured it a couple inches to the left right onto my hand. Fuck!

I once walked into a wall holding a glass and needed 10 stiches. I still can't feel half of my left pinkie.

I put stuff that doesn't belong in the fridge in it at least a couple times every week.

left the keys in a locked car with the engine runnning on more than one occasion

― that's why ZOG controls the radio (brownie), Friday, June 8, 2012 10:50 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I did this recently except I hadn't even locked it. I parked and then ran some errands only to return and find I wasn't able to find my keys. Only then did I try the door and was like oh hey I left them in here . . . and the car running too! :/

has anyone else ever...forgotten to put their shoes on when leaving the house?

couple of years ago i was actually on the tube, one stop away from my house, when i realised i was still wearing my slippers. never felt so self-conscious as when i had to go back and shuffle home to put my shoes on :(

― kanye kardashian (lex pretend), Friday, June 8, 2012 9:09 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I once realized at like 3 in the afternoon that I'd been walking around all day wearing two different (although v similar) black sandals.

A couple times I have been pouring boiling water for coffee or tea and not even looked at the cup, and poured it a couple inches to the left right onto my hand. Fuck!

I seem to have a problem judging short distances, too. And things like that happen to me more than occasionally, and it bothers me.

frantically dig through the dresser drawer for condoms, instead find cinnamon.
leave my car running for entire day in the school parking lot, burn much gas.
dry dishes, put them in the freezer.
oh look the burner's still on
oh look the foreman grill is still plugged in (yes i own and use one of these, shoosh)
say i'll call you back, forget until it's weird that i'm now calling you back

i've never lost lost my keys.

stirring a pot on my mum's electric stove, noticed the seal around the hotplate was corroded... so I touched it.

my fingertip turned white.

fyi i was a grownass adult when this happened.

I went to mess with some shit I was cooking in my stove in a dutch oven, took the metal-everything lid off with by bare fucking hand; how fucking damn dumb am I; god I fucking hate my dumb stupid self.

I mean fuck I turn into a self-loathing ding dong when I burn myself

all of you stop putting yr keys in yr back pocket

More than once I've worried that I locked my keys in my truck and realized they were between my teeth.

i burned my finger on a toaster oven once. my roommate saw me reaching out to pull out the metal shelf, said “don’t touch that”, i touched it, burned myself, and immediately said, “I DO WHAT I WANT"

he never tried to boss me around again

i have dropped my keys into a dumpster while holding onto an empty coffee cup. >_<

today my friend insisted on walking 30 blocks from jackson heights to woodside and when we were almost there i realized i had forgotten the keys to the place we were going.

Moving from the UK to US, arrived at my new apartment with 4 suitcases to find a lockbox on the door. I had the apartment keys, but hadn't expected the box. Pressed every button, tried every combination, it didn't seem to do anything or yield any keys. Called a locksmith. Locksmith arrived, asked for my keys, opened the apartment door with them, and pointed out that if the lockbox had had anything in it I would have been able to see it.

Arrive late and in a hurry for DJ gig, park car in loading/towaway zone to bring in equipment. Completely forget about car until bar closes at 2 AM. Need other DJ to drive me to impound lot.

Went to dry cleaner's to drop stuff off, forgot wallet, resigned self to taking dry cleaning back home, started to gather it up, and then had it pointed out to me by staff in shop that I don't have to pay till pick-up.

I have two doors that I go through to exit my home. Despite having done this hundreds of times, I continually pick out the wrong key to lock the door. They are distinctly different keys, yet I can't ever get them right.

i have dropped my keys into a dumpster while holding onto an empty coffee cup. >_<

From the "Document Your ARGGGH Moments" thread, which never took off.

Oh man, came out of playing a gig one night, bass in one hand, car keys and beer bottle in other hand. Tried to toss beer bottle into dumpster and keys went sailing along. Much time spent poking around a dumpster filled with mix of garbage bags, rainwater and fryer grease.

― On the sidelines in a trash can grumping (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, 6 March 2012 17:20 (3 months ago) Permalink

i always seem to misplace either my keys, wallet, or cell phone. i never leave them behind anywhere (except once), but i always put them down somewhere in the house and then forget where i put them. too many times have i ended up showing up late somewhere because i was frantically digging around the house trying to find one of those three items. and they're usually on the couch or the bed, for some reason often underneath a blanket or the cat.

as someone with dodgy plumbing, these overflowing bath stories are making me alarmed

as someone with A HOUSE WHICH HAS dodgy plumbing

it's too late for disclaimers james james morrison morrison weatherby george pants pee

^_^

Overflowing the bath/sink is fine if yr bathroom has a drain in the floor - which I grew up with and thought was normal, but I've since discovered isnt, really. It seems like it'd be v important, especially say, in a multi storey place!

Swear the biggest differences between my world and your world, Trayce, involve plumbing. In Australia, these are somewhat normal:

• The drain in the floor.

• The frequency of shower/sink being in a different room from the toilet.

• The common off-hand way people use the word "toilet".

• Troughs commonly found instead of urinals.

• This little step thingy in front of the troughs.

• Many residences not even having a bathtub.

• Being offered the choice of full flush or half flush.

Nothing wrong with any of that, but I could drive on the left-hand side all day long and I wouldn't feel as strange as facing that step thingy.

Hahah I know! The not having a bathtub one is now becoming VERY common in new or newly renovated homes and apartments - so many people seem to hate or never have baths, so they're having that whole are replaced with GIANT SHOWERS that you could honestly fit 3 or 4 people in!? It made house-hunting a very irritating task, 60% of the places I liked had no bath.

half flush doesn't do shit

also I will never ever become accustomed to the habit of calling a toilet a 'bathroom'

half flush doesn't do shit

Well of course not that's what the full-flush is for.

hahaha. wait a minute doesnt ever bathroom have at least a sink?its ridiculous not to have a drain in the floor 4 sure

A+ pplains

that's the punchline veg

half flush doesn't do shit

Well, indeed.

DOH XPOSTARGH

Wait yeah bathrooms have sinks. I thought pp was saying toilet rooms dont (and in many places, even in the UK, thats a seperate room)

im trying to remember....i dont think they did have a sink. i know one did and my friend's scottish boyfriend used to pee in the sink ALL THE TIME so maybe better off without?

Maybe it's just the toilet and the shower being separated.

no i think youre right about the sink. that must be one germy door handle

Yeah I was a bit skeeved by sinks in toilet-only rooms in UK places I was in. Seen it a bit here but usually only in those kind of "tacked on" toilet rooms at the back door/laundry of an old house.

Ive never seen a drain in the floor aside from retail/gym type place - no homes!

No sink? Then where do you wash your hands?

Obviously our bathrooms have sinks! Our *toilets* often dont.

It makes sense to have the 'loo in its own little room if you think about it. That way if someone's showering/doing makeup/wtf ever you can still go.

But you touch door with pee hands ;_;

Sorry I'm drunk and being dramatic. No offence! That's just what doesn't make sense to me. The showering/peeing bit is a perk though.

Well think about it - any public loo you use has a stall door that everyone's touching after peeing, before hand washing...

I suppose :P

GEEERRRMS EVERYWHERRRRE

so, to bring this back on topic, that makes being forgetful good! You dont worry about such things ;P

Yay!!

you'd think that the simple task of going downstairs to fill up the big water bottle and kettle i have in my room would be hard to fuck up, right

GOD

i came back upstairs without EITHER of them. went back downstairs, the kettle was in my food cupboard and the water bottle was outside on the picnic table. i'd also forgotten to put away the packet of crackers i'd got out to snack on.

as i was coming back upstairs i managed to drop the water bottle, and it transpired that i'd also forgotten to screw the lid back on properly

nearly just gave up on the day then and there, should probably go back to bed just to be on the safe side

i had some time this morning so i got off the uptown train at 72nd to swing by trader joe's and pick up some stuff. i normally do this after work, so without thinking, when i returned to the subway, i jumped on the downtown express train and wound up back at times square. this is the second time i've done that!

does anyone else get that thing where you remember all the little things you have to do ALL IN ONE GO and it stresses you out so much but you're in the middle of something else and then like literally a second later you've FORGOTTEN THEM ALL AGAIN and then half an hour later you remember them again but you're in the middle of another thing but it's compounded by the knowledge that you already remembered and then forgot and then you basically want to die

HOW do people organise themselves?

I try to write them down. I function better with a list

xpost

Yeah, that pretty much describes every one of my days. And I have no idea how people organize themselves. I've become convinced that your brain has to be primed for organization at a very young age in order for it to make sense to you, and mine very much wasn't.

xp ^^^ I write everything down. I'd forget it all otherwise.

the times when my memory kicks in tend to be times when I have no pen, paper or even phone handy. by the time I've got something to make a list on I've FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING AGAIN :(((((((((((

I basically forgot to organise an eye test for a YEAR despite numerous reminders from my opticians. Finally got round to it when I was running out of contact lenses. Turns out my records have been DELETED and it's going to be the most tremendous faff getting new ones and I ONLY HAVE FIVE PAIRS LEFT :(

iPhone + Notes + trying to remember to check the notes + semi-regular sitting down with all the notes and crating a todo list = uh, wanting to die :(

I sit in front of a computer for about 12 hours on weekdays, I ought to be able to keep better notes

Instead, I tend to write everything in a small, easily lost notebook

I've tried all kinds of organizational systems and note-taking systems and nothing has ever really taken. HOWEVER, recently I happened upon the idea (specifically with respect to getting some of my writing thoughts in order) of using index cards. I constructed this cardboard sleeve that holds a bunch of index cards so I can carry them around with me and when I think of something, I write it on a card and then put it into the appropriate order in the "deck". It's so simple but it's really been quite a profound break from trying to transcribe my completely non-linear thoughts into linear lists in notebooks and such.

putting my fb post from the other day in here for posterity:

OMG you guys, I was so ticked at Taco Cabana a month ago when I got home and found out they'd shorted me a burrito. They didn't. I just found out it was in that little crevice between my passenger seat and the door. Eew.

xpost

I just have to remember to actually use this new system and to write things down, which is a whooooole other obstacle.

For those of us chained to desks: I have an Excel checklist that has four columns for each month and infinite rows for keeping track of my tasks, every month I add four more columns, merge cells if a task needs to be done biweekly or monthly, etc. There's a column at the end that is larger that I can keep report-specific notes in. Thought I'd mention this approach since it works so well for me! I even hyperlinked all the report titles so they open the various files or folders I need. First thing I open everyday and last thing I close.

Handwritten lists for me, almost always. Especially if I'm starting to feel that drowning panic of omg I'll never get everything done. But I only make lists of things that are achievable and can be crossed off relatively quickly - ie within the space of a week or two. But usually achieving the little things makes the big looming things that can't really be put on a list feel more doable. I dunno if that logic makes sense to anyone but me though

if there is an Excel-like program out there that doesn't make me hate it immediately, i would like to test-drive it for organizational purposes

iOS reminders and Evernote.

seriously i've used Excel spreadsheets for years at workplaces but i really don't know how to use Excel properly
i got pretty awesome at using Access for simple database stuff though. i think this is maybe an issue of visual (abstract?) thinking vs whatever kind of thinking Excel requires
xp

cool, i will look at those

my main form of daily organization is iphone notes lists + calendar, which works pretty well, really
but as far as individual projects go, oh, that is where things have gotten messy in the past. the file cards idea is cool. but i would like a digital version.

aww man rrobyn! Excel is my jam. I use it for everything. In this case, I just use it like a checklist - no formulas or anything intricate, just a useful and flexible series of grids. If you ever need help, Lexerators are standing by:
computer/programming/excel wizards! help an idiot!

<3 lexerators

i think i just don't like grids

I am both proud of my deep knowledge of Excel and hoping beyond hope that I never again have to excercise that knowledge in a professional context.

<3 Vegerator

It's okay if you don't like grids, r. I hope one of the other suggestions proves fruitful! I wish I had a tiny little Excel on my phone but I don't so I just use the Notes feature, poorly and absentmindedly.

I use the Google spreadsheet but for some reason, can't sort the columns anymore.

So I use my note pad and eight differently colored highlighters.

many xposts - thanks Jeff for reminding me about Evernote! I heard about it from android peeps a year or two ago but hadn't downloaded the iphone app. I'm gonna try it out.

I use Evernote all the time but just for recording ideas. And it's great for that! For me, though, any attempt at using it as an organizational tool or to keep track of legitimately important things would be a laughable failure, I'm sure.

VG, were you the one talking about getting an occasional.. tickle/twinge in your back? Because I feel like since I read that it has been happening every day! It was occasional before that but I think you cursed me. J'accuse!

Twas not me! HOW DARE U

You did this ;_;

I have two mugs on my desk, 1 contains water, the other contains frozen blueberries. As they have melted, sometimes they stick to the sides, so I've had to toss them out of the mug toward my mouth to get them unstick. A minute ago I was reading email and I went to fling some berries down my gullet and instead I got a face full of cold water. :(

i had a thing of almonds and a mug of water in a meeting, and i absent mindedly dipped my fingers into my water mug when i meant to reach for my almonds

i went to walk into the bathroom so i could watch myself eating doritos in the mirror, but then i remembered there wasnt a mirror

omg Jesse, I am dying. I wish I could have seen this happen.

xp you didn't have any Doritos either.

no they were actually supermarket own brand chips but i didnt want people to think less of me

oh Je55e. I laughed too, I actually covered my mouth and widened my eyes! Sorry babe!

I'm sorry Je55e that made me laugh til I cried

But as penance I will share that when I rinse off dirty dishes with the sink hose, 9 times out of 10 I grab it by the trigger and spray myself full pelt in the face. I CAN'T STOP IT FROM HAPPENING i DON'T KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME

Well here's the other thing: I did the exact same thing yesterday, but not as forcefully ;__;

i r dum

i went to walk into the bathroom so i could watch myself eating doritos in the mirror, but then i remembered there wasnt a mirror

??

aw yr not dumb. yr lovely, Je55e :)

Don't try to limit me, I can be both!

reach for the stars!

You should make "Dumb and Lovely" the tag line on your online dating profiles.

lol

it sounds like a low-end hair product

haha

and it does

best. thread. ever.

does anyone else get that thing where you remember all the little things you have to do ALL IN ONE GO and it stresses you out so much but you're in the middle of something else and then like literally a second later you've FORGOTTEN THEM ALL AGAIN and then half an hour later you remember them again but you're in the middle of another thing but it's compounded by the knowledge that you already remembered and then forgot and then you basically want to die

THIS, and more specifically, when I need a haircut I remember every Monday to book an appt, except that's the only day the salon is closed, so I think 'no problem, I'll call tomorrow' and then I forget until the next Monday ad infinitum

I just this morning remembered the detailed precis I'd formed in my mind last year for a play I wanted to write. Unfortunately, I only really remember the existence of the idea without many of the attendant details. Mark that one under 'arguments for maybe actually writing things the eff down now and then'.

Last night I grabbed the water jug out of the fridge instead of the milk, and poured cold water into my hot cup of coffee.

Today I brought my lunch (leftovers) and managed to leave it on my desk til lunchtime instead of putting it in the fridge when I got to work.

Someone just shoot me, srsly

I'm just having one of those days where I just keep dropping EVERYTHING. As soon as my fingers touch something, they fumble them onto the floor. Being really pregnant and having difficulty bending over, it's making me SO MAD but I can't stop.

Oh god, I sympathize with that so much...after a few fumbles in a row it makes you really paranoid, it's the worst feeling.

The lunch on the desk one reminded me of the time I brought a cup of yogurt and some carrots to work and put them in the fridge. When I went to eat them later, they were gone! I was kind of peeved that my coworker had eaten my food out of the fridge, but didn't say anything because I figured it was an honest mistake and she can be prickly about stuff. Of course, three days later as I was looking for lip balm, I came across a cup of yogurt and a bag of carrots lurking disgustingly in the dark corners of my bag. I had never put the food in the fridge in the first place.

Last night I grabbed the water jug out of the fridge instead of the milk, and poured cold water into my hot cup of coffee.

Urrrk. I sometimes do this at breakfast confusing juice to be poured in the glass with milk to be poured on the cereal, and get a bowl of juice and special k. Which is very unspecial.

my move is to pour milk into the cereal bowl before i've poured the cereal. it flies!

on wednesday i went to spray a coat of lacquer on something in the spray booth at school, all suited up with gloves and respirator, and for just a second it's like hey why is this suddenly so cumbersome OH I'M HOLDING A BOTTLE OF MOUNTAIN DEW

je55e yr mug situation could have been much worse, you could have been that chemist who mistook his container of explosive liquid for his container of water. it didn't end well.

(i can't seem to find this story anywhere, did i make it up?)

yesterday at work I tripped over a bag and walked straight into a wall

I got the giggles on the bus imagining seeing someone else accidentally throwing a mug full of water at their face instead of blueberries.

Another time I was drinking Bud bottles (longnecks) and then ordered a Red Stripe. I picked up the Red Stripe and poured it right into my lap with the bottle a few inches from my mouth because I was used to the opening being farther away than on the stubby necked Red Stripes.

identifying hard with the clumsiness stories

my speciality is, when i am running seriously late, especially if i have to catch a train or something where i can't get away with it, i grab some last-min thing off the shelf and WITHOUT FAIL manage to bring down everything else on the shelf if not the shelf itself

and wires getting tangled up

all the time

wires and cables hate me and want to strangle me. several times i have had to actually claw my headphones away from my throat in public :(

I always get my headphone cord caught on drawer pulls and corners and doorknobs - I destroyed my first pair of sennheisers that way. it's to the point where I started gently looping the cord into a loose knot to shorten the dangling cord. but even when I do that I'll still get yanked backwards every now and then as I wander around the house.

I was once at a film symposium at a snooty East Coast college and called security at like 2am when I had lost the key to the dorm room I was staying in. Turned out it was hanging around my neck.

I hope yoru days can be better soon

This thread is really like ILX's Island of Misfit Toys, huh <3

Once at the gym, before those fancy programmable locks were the norm, I locked my locker with a combination lock and thought I was being clever by writing the combo on my shoe. Then I went swimming and came back only to find that OF COURSE the combo had washed off my shoes soooo I had to go to the front desk in my soaking wet swimsuit and ask if someone could come cut a lock off the locker, and the guy said that if the woman who worked in housekeeping had left, I would have to wait until the gym closed (about three hours hence) and the locker room was empty so he could go in and cut the lock himself. Luckily, the woman was still there but by the time she came I had forgotten which locker I had used. Thankfully I guessed correctly.

headphones with cables is one of those 'wtf we just dropped a truck on mars but we can't do xxx' things

You can get wireless headphones!

But sadly only for home use.

yeah, sigh

Another time I was drinking Bud bottles (longnecks) and then ordered a Red Stripe. I picked up the Red Stripe and poured it right into my lap with the bottle a few inches from my mouth because I was used to the opening being farther away than on the stubby necked Red Stripes.

― (*・_・)ノ⌒ ☆ (Je55e)

Similar with me for coffee. I make about a 3-cup's worth in the morning, and by the bottom of the first cup it's cooled down enough to gulp. Then I pour myself another cup and am good with the new level (no splashing on the face), but forget about the heat, so I take a big swig and scald my mouth. Sometimes it's so hot I have immediately spit it back into the cup. Happens fairly regularly.

"have to immediately..."

God bless the absent minded for tey brought us flubber

i just almost put my teabag in my bowl of soup

the "almost" saves me from being fully absent minded, but this is probably just a warmup

It seems like I forgot to get better from this horrible cold, which added to my forgetting to get milk while shopping.
Wish I could forget I had a job interview tomorrow morning, & another the day after. But I did at least remember to buy a tie.

DId forget the new pair of glasses I was supposed to be picking up in town yesterday. May have been because i suddenly realised what time it was and needed to get to the bus station to pick up a pass then drop out to the shopping area closer to where I live to give somebody a ticket I wasn't going to use.
May also have been thanks to this rotten cold

I always get my headphone cord caught on drawer pulls and corners and doorknobs - I destroyed my first pair of sennheisers that way. it's to the point where I started gently looping the cord into a loose knot to shorten the dangling cord. but even when I do that I'll still get yanked backwards every now and then as I wander around the house.

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl),

Every. Single. Day.

Think my worst absent minded thing was on a busy Tube, put my hand on what I thought was the rail. Suddenly realised I was holding some other guys hand for ten seconds. ARHG

oh noooo IRL LOLs though

ohhhh no

It seems weird that the guy didn't...say anything? For 10 seconds!

IRL public snortol!

haha. oh man.

i do these kinds of things far too often to remember much, but i do remember one from the other week - i decided to go to the john cage centenary prom, gave myself plenty of time to get ready, had a read of the online programme, headed off with bags of time to spare, had a fine journey there, went to the ticket desk to buy an on-the-day ticket. "that's at the royal albert hall. this is the royal festival hall." oy. i knew where it was, i just somehow managed to autopilot my way through the hour long journey to the rfh. kinda felt like living in a bad sitcom. (luckily for me i had been so efficient with the rest of my day that i still had time to make it to the right place.)

oh yeah I feel that

had a friend from Oz visit years ago, took her to SF to see a new broadway show they were trialling at the Curran. Mr Veg drove us across town from the hotel to the Curran, dropped us off and I went to the will call to collect the tickets only to be told the show was on the following night. I meekly had to call Mr Veg and ask him to come get us. Meanwhile my friend who has known me forever was like LOLOL CLASSIC VG
;_;

One time I got chatting to a friendly German tourist at a bar. I thought it would be a charming and hospitable gesture to buy her and her travelling companion a round of drinks, so we made our way to the bar, where the bartender poured several fancy cocktails, while I fumbled around in my pockets searching for my credit card (I was not a wallet-carrier in those days). To my distress, I couldn't find my card or any money anywhere, which I awkwardly attempted to explain to the bewildered/nascent-scam-sniffing German. I shrugged sheepishly at the bartender while I fumbled around the rest of the bar, at a loss as to where my card could be. I was alone so I couldn't ask any friends to spring for the drinks, and the German's gratitude gradually turned to bitterness as it dawned on her that I wasn't able to pay for the drinks. I avoided eye contact and shamefully pretended as if they weren't there, while the bartender shook his head, scowled, and poured away the drinks as I continued my seemingly vain pretence to save face. How pathetic I felt, when all of a sudden I remembered I hadn't checked my back pocket...

oh no

Last night I arranged to meet my bf at his local. I thought I'd be there before him as he was at the laundrette so I bought a pint, walked into the beergarden, sat down and said hello to one of the regulars.

...not at all noticing or acknowledging my bf already sitting down, 2 tables away, probably wondering why I am blanking him. WTF, me. I am still so embarrased I did that.

http://bite-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/hans-moleman.png

<3

LOL yes, thats also tru.

Not really "absentminded" but re accidental touching on public transport I was on one of the sideways seats on the bus this morning and I fell sideways onto the guy next to me on the backwards-facing seat when the bus stopped suddenly, TWICE.

WTF, no idea what was different this morning vs any other time I've sat there. The second time I thought "fuck this, maybe I'll stand", and it was almost my stop anyway, so I just got up, pressed the button, and stood until my stop. But perhaps someone thought I was so ashamed that I just got off and walked all the way into town.

I often blank people accidentally, due to a combination of being short-sighted, getting a kind of nervous/hurried tunnel vision when I'm trying to get somewhere, and not being good at faces. People from the bf's work have been all "oh I saw your gf at the shops but she ignored me", when I met them once a year ago and can't remember what they look like at all!

It seems weird that the guy didn't...say anything? For 10 seconds!

― purveyor of generations (in orbit)

he was some suited City type so maybe not v reactionary. I think the combination of sheer weirdness of some guy just holding yr hand apropos nothing/busy train/me jumping about a foot backwards when I realised said everything that needed to said about the situation. :/

Names are the worst for me. I've just started in a new office (hence I can post to ILX and not do my job instead of lurking!) of about twenty people and I only remember my boss and the receptionists name. Why can't you make them stick?

I often blank people accidentally, due to a combination of being short-sighted, getting a kind of nervous/hurried tunnel vision when I'm trying to get somewhere

Argh yes this, thats one reason why I didnt spot the boy, I was just in this "well hes not here yet" zone and didnt even scan the room. I've also been accused of blanking ppl before when I had no idea I'd done so. I enf up thinking I'm all like:

http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/8300000/Fran-black-books-8377083-516-296.jpg

ah crap wrong tag. well anyway.

Lovely italics, though.

I get terrible anxiety when I have to meet someone in a public place, for the same reasons as a passing spacecadet. Like if I have to meet people in a restaurant and they are seated before I get there, I'm just terrified I'm going to get way too close to a table of strangers before I realize they are not my friends.

Recently I've been playing softball with my friends at a park where you have to walk across a big field before you get to the three baseball diamonds. Sometimes more than one of the diamonds is occupied, and I'm walking across the field hauling a bucket of balls and two bats (which somehow makes me feel even more ridiculous in this situation), and at some point you really have to commit to which of the three diamonds you are walking towards, but at that point I am almost never certain which group of people are my friends. Sometimes I'll get really close and start feeling really confident and then the first person who comes into focus will be some complete stranger that one of my friends invited that week, and the interval between seeing him and realizing that I know everyone else there is full of this horrible sinking sensation...

Just walking towards people who can see you from a long distance away is enough to induce self-consciousness, and you end up doing those little bursts of jogging that don't actually make you go any faster but at least make it look as though you're putting in some effort: having to do it with a big weight dragging behind you would be much worse.

forgot password, ffs. again. i forget a lot.

requested pwd change, changed it. i'll remember it now!

prompted to login. can't. pwd is wrong. waht?

try again, nope. variations don't work. caps lock isn't on, wasn't on before.

requested another pwd change. ffs.

2nd time this wk. 2 difft sites.

imo nobody should ever be admonished for flubbing or forgetting a password

one day the lord supreme king of devils woke up and said 'FUCK YOU ALL I'M INVENTING PASSWORDS'

Normally park our car in garage overnight. Lately garage has been full so have to park in the driveway. Am horrible at remembering to lock the damn car. The other morning, go to car to discover someone has Been Through It.

Only spare change was taken (as far as we know) but WOW am I a ridiculous flake and in SO MUCH TROUBLE with my husband.

AM: Wake up late b/c I set the alarm to 7:00 pm, so I have to take a cab to work.

PM: On the bus ride home I get an email from a Groupon-like company that screwed up and was offering me a voucher for $10 of take-out food, good tonight only. I say hooray, free dinner! and order an $11 pizza from the place by my house. Right as I hit Submit, I remember that I hadn't entered the discount code. Instead of *free* dinner, I spent $11 unnecessarily.

I wonder if anyone on the bus heard me exclaim what I dumb bitch I am.

I have developed a terrible habit of forgetting to take the filter out of the cofeemaker when I brew coffee. Mr Veg had to have a ~serious talk~ with me about it a few months back. and I've been SO much better! And then...I made a pot of coffee on Sunday morning. And the filter sat in the machine til Monday afternoon when Mr Veg went to make coffee.

;_;

back to square one

stupid brain

In other news, I made myself some popcorn in the microwave today. And for some reason, absent a decent sized bowl it seemed to me that a ziplock back would be a good receptacle. The unpopped kernels melting through the plastic was my first indication that this was a terrible idea.

Jesus christ what is wrong with me. It scares me sometimes, if I'm like this now what am I going to be like when I'm ACTUALLY senile (assuming that I'm not already, lol)

bag not back

bag never come back, bag melt ;)

lol

paper bag popcorn is pretty good though. supposedly you can even staple it shut because the staple is somehow smaller than the wavelength of the microwave or some nonsense but can you trust alton brown who is probably laughing at all the exploded microwaves?

I make paper bag popcorn all the ding dang time! I don staple the bag be aside I'm scared to and also one of those little folder-over self-staple moves keeps it closed fine.

WOW Lookit them thumb-typos.

Paper bag popcorn is exactly what I was doing - <3 it so much

Except I think I put the bag in the wrong side up because half the kernels didn't pop? I think they got trapped in the bottom fold of the bag somehow. Popcorn fail x 2 :(

i was told recently that it's the edges of mental objects that catch alight in a microwave (or something like that) so putting staples in a microwave would probably be a bad idea

I had a travel mug that was plastic with a metallic inlay...I had a VG moment and put it in the microwave to heat up my coffee and wooo did I get a pretty show

:O

xp to self

metal NOT mental

Begbies

I have developed a terrible habit of forgetting to take the filter out of the cofeemaker when I brew coffee. Mr Veg had to have a ~serious talk~ with me about it a few months back. and I've been SO much better! And then...I made a pot of coffee on Sunday morning. And the filter sat in the machine til Monday afternoon when Mr Veg went to make coffee.

;_;

back to square one

stupid brain

I always do this :P I am bad people

Never mind that Begbies lol

haha

I belong here. :)

Wondertwins, activate

on various hols i've forgotten/lost my wallet x2, didn't have my licence or the right type of licence x2, lost keys to campervan, missed flights, forgotten knives packed in carryon luggage, slept in the rain outside the gates of an airport that closed at night, and left my passport and wallet on the table in the cafe in stansted for six hours while i slept on the floor seventy yards away. This is all in the past three or four years, i'm amazed anyone still travels with me tbrr

we welcome u, dmac

tks but i can't stay i think i left my niece in the recycling bin

lol

how the fuck do you become a responsible, organised adult? how? just learned that i've apparently not paid any national insurance contributions for three years. i don't know how that happened. i don't know HOW i was meant to be paying them, or how i paid them before. literally no idea. i don't really know wtf they even are. i feel like at some point in their early twenties everyone went to some sort of life skills class that i wasn't told about

you're not alone, i'm 38 and i only just found out i've been paying $thousands per year in tax because i have a savings account

xp Same class that runs straight after antenatal classes which teaches blokes how to regrout a bath and make terrible puns.

Go upstairs for a wee. Wife asks me to bring back slippers. Two tasks, both very simple. Come back without slippers, every time.

what is most important, wee or slippers?

That depends whether you're me, or my wife. Slippers are generally in the bathroom, though...

I was burgled a couple of weeks ago. They stole my best bike (left the other two) and my flatmates' laptop. That was all, I thought, until I was looking for my camera on Saturday. My camera which sits on my desk in my room with two other cameras, immediately visible when you walk in the room, and yet I didn't notice all three had been taken.

:-( sorry to hear that ledge.

thx man. could've been worse, was insured and they didn't trash the place - didn't even touch anything else. just feel like an overpriviliged idiot for not even realising the cameras had gone.

sucks

how the fuck do you become a responsible, organised adult? how? just learned that i've apparently not paid any national insurance contributions for three years. i don't know how that happened

Lex if its anything like it is in Aus (ie superannuation or a health fund thing), isnt the company you work for meant to help organise paying into a fund? Like how they take out income tax? I'd have no clue how much money was going into mine, I trust my payroll ppl to be doing it!

Lex, aren't you a freelancer? Did you perchance start freelancing three years ago? I imagine it's like any other taxes - if you're self-employed, you are responsible for paying all the taxes/mandatory contributions yourself since you do not have an employer that would withhold those things from your check.

Have you paid any tax the last three years, lex? That might be a bigger matter.

Last night I putt a cigarette behind my ear so i could go outside and smoke it. In getting ready I looked down to grab my tea and it falls into it. Plus side: leave it to dry, tea-flavored cigeracchi.

i've been paying $thousands per year in tax because i have a savings account

wait... what?

Lex, shouldn't an accountant be handling the tax BS for you? I've heard it's that a freelancer's taxes are an unpleasant matter. It was terrible enough doing my taxes when I was a waiter that I gladly hired someone (who saved me a thousand or two a year).

My contribution to the the thread's topic: tonight was the second time I tried to unlock the door of the apartment 1 floor below mine. The elevator stopped at the wrong floor and I auto-piloted to the door while reading mail. I hollered "Sorry sorry sorry!" and ran to the stairwell. Poor Unit 505 - I would pee my pants if someone came rattling at my door unexpectedly.

I signed up to staff an Election Day voter hotline again this year, which requires a training, which is fine bc it's been four years and I don't remember how it works.

So I'm at the training right now and they are talking about field volunteers a lot and hotline volunteers not at all, which seemed weird until I doubled checked the calendar apt and realized I signed up for the wrong thing. This is after I very carefully disregarded two other training sessions bc they were for field volunteers.

this is a typical VG tl:dr story but w/e it's my thread, lol

Our office has these end of the month parties, usually with a theme of some kind. The Halloween end of month party usually coincides with the office Halloween costume festivities. So I have my thing planned out, not so much for the competition but just bc I'm a dorky nerd who likes to dress up now and then, and I like futzing around with stage makeup and whatnot.

So I've had it in my head that tomorrow is the costume contest, because the end of month party is tomorrow. They gave us all a free lunchtime creative thing to do this week, where we all take a sheet and make a 'ghost' costume. I wasn't in the office yesterday so they let me do mine this afternoon. So I made my ghost and all the while I'm thinking, well that's kind of weird that they'd make everyone put sheets over their heads when half the people will be dressed up in costumes. So I cut a hole for my head bcs I'd be in makeup, and I tried to theme my ghost-sheet a little bit around my planned costume.

I came back to my desk and mentioned to my coworker my same thought, about why they would have everyone covered in sheets when ppl will be in Halloween costume.
He looked at me funny and said 'Dude, the halloween costume thing is next Wednesday. Tomorrow's just the end of month party.' And I was all, 'But they always have the two combined!' And I quickly looked on our intranet page and lo and behold...the costume contest is on Wednesday.

If I had not had that conversation I would have gone to work tomorrow in costume. Like, I already had mentally figured out what time to set my alarm to put everything together. And I quickly ran back upstairs to re-doctor my ghost sheet and remove any traces of 'thematic' elements tied to my halloween costume, lol.

Holy fuck, talk about a close call. That could have been SO bad.

^lol VG

My life is littered with events like this; the latest just this afternoon.

Today I left my car parked near downtown Boston with one of the rear doors wide -and I mean wide- open, for two hours. I found this out when I left my office to go home, and from a full block away I saw that rear door sticking way out like an elephant ear into the cityscape. I broke into a run because, in addition to the usual glove compartment goodies, my car was stuffed full of stuff including: CDs up the wazoo, change of clothes, about a dozen library books, flyfishing gear (3 rods, 3 reels, etc), and a pop of the trunk would have revealed a bunch of rockclimbing crap, such as a bouldering mat, shoes & chalk. Worst of all, I had left, in the backseat, the back cover of a magazine from my childhood, featuring a watercolor I had submitted to them as an 8 yr old, and which I had long ago given up for lost until my mother dug it out of an old chest and had it framed. So basically I left all this stuff out there for display, just airing out in the gentle Indian Summer breeze.

Lo and behold, when I got to the car I found everything was exactly as I had left it. Nobody had even rustled it, it appeared.

I felt huge relief and gratitude and momentary love of humankind, of course, but also, weirdly, a slight twinge of, I dunno, quasi-adolescent forlornness? I mean, nobody wanted any of my crap? I can understand, ok, who the hell needs a pair of smelly climbing shoes, a kid's watercolor (faded), or a bunch of brick-heavy philosophy books, but you'd think maybe someone would have snatched the Zizek at least, no?

I sewed a button onto a pair of combats yesterday - it was the just-above-the-fly one, which has previously popped off (yeah, I know). Anyway, sewed the button, job done, put on the combats, walk around for a bit going "mmm, trousers".

Then I returned to the desk and went to put away the needle and thread, and realised that the needle's gone missing - it's from a set of six, and the others are all there. I get a little worried because, well, because needle, and also because of specific fear that it'll wait until I'm down on the floor looking for one of the other things that I tend to knock over, and as soon as I think it's a good idea to actually get down to eye-level - boom! needle in the eye.

So I look around for a bit and I can't find it, and I can't find it, and then I think to do the "Sir, where is the last place you remember seeing the object in question", and I realise that I can't remember cutting the thread. And sure enough, there was the needle still at the end of the thread, "safely" nestling next to my junk.

whoa

also thank you for putting the 'boom! needle in the eye' imagery in my head, I had never thought of that before EEEUGGGGHHH!!!

Oh shit sorry, dude! Damage-to-eye is a whole horror motif and all!

Usually junk is supposed to go in the needle, not the other way around.

lol

this doesn't really qualify as absent-minded, just um...dim? and kinda silly really. I didn't know where else to put it.

My coworker told me of a white bean soup that his wife makes that's really good, and I asked him to bring me the recipe.
I was reading through it and I got confused. I looked over at him and I said, "This says it's for navy beans?"
He said, yeah, white beans. "Okay, cool thanks!" But I was still confused a little bit.

Later when I was telling Mr Veg he looked at me with a smirk and said, "You thought navy beans were blue, didn't you."

"Yes." was my meek reply. Mr Veg said, "Navy as in boats, not Navy as in the color, silly."

True story.

NOW I get it.

Well but I mean red beans, black beans, white beans so why wouldn't you think blue beans? Ego te absolvo.

Er... I was also under the impression... *takes notes*

I knew I created this thread for a reason <3

I had never heard of navy beans til now!

OMG why can't I ever be on time? I tried so hard to be punctual today. End up running on to the platform just as the last possible train that would've got me to the next station on time was pulling out. Would've made it if I hadn't had to go back for my coat. The sad thing is I was aiming for half an hour before the second train left just in case and aaarghhhhhhhh whyyyyyyyy, whyyyyyyy

Today, running errands on a busy street: I got into the driver's seat, but not before leaving a half-full can of coke on roof of car. I drove six blocks when I was alerted by a sliding sound overhead. I clicked on the hazard lights, rolled to a stop, and got out to look. The can stood, three inches from the rear edge of the roof, upright and still half-full.

*applause*

lex, you have all my sympathy. tis a mighty struggle

Nippy here yesterday, felt pretty cold in the flat. So I put on the heating for a short while. woke up this morning lay in bed reading Neil Young for a while. Eventually got up and you could feel something strange in the air. At which I realised that I'd forgotten to turn the heat back off. So been on for 12+ hours, not sure exactly when I put it on either.

Well at least I can have a bath this morning I guess.

pretty sure that's normal behaviour for a whole lot of people. arseholeish, but normal.

arseholish?
are you talking about shared accomodation? I'm the billpayer.
would probably only have the thing on for as long during the space of about a week. Just forgot I put it on so will have to put it on timed if I do again.

i'm thinking 'bout the planet, maaaaaan.

the "it's winter, let's put the heating on 24/7 so i can still walk round in a t-shirt" school of thought.

I think turning the heat up a bit when you're cold is not necessarily an arseholish thing. Or at least not so much that we need to insult Stevo here, since he was obviously upset with himself/embarassed to have done so!
I cannot control my heat so I am forced to put on thicker socks, etc. Luckily my building is rarely chilly.

ok yeah i wasn't call steve an arsehole! only criticising people who do that on the reg.

ah, good stuff. Sorry I guess I am in 'Mother Hen' mode this morning :) Carry on, scatter brains!

I learned why one puts certain things in a blender vs a food processor last night.

"Oh riiight when there's that much liquid it just spills out the top and alll over the counter. Right. Got it."

fuck
my
life

I cannot control my heat so I am forced to put on thicker socks, etc. open the window when it's 10°F (-12° C) out. This has been discussed in another thread somewhere, I know. Anyway, such is life for many thousands of Chicagoans - I'm guessing New Yorkers, too.

I miss radiator heat.

So much quieter...

We are packing to leave for a job. It came time to collect and pack glassware and I have been going crazy all night looking for my much treasured, vintage, 1950's looking, little glass pitcher that I bought for $5 while on the first job. Really took the edge off the election to focus on this.

I always, ALWAYS pack glassware last. It was right there on the shelf like two days ago! I figured it broke and someone didn't want to tell me. Finally I pressured J. to just come out with it, even made it easy on him throwing out the different scenarios. He kept saying he didn't break it or misplace it then would laugh. So he did it!

I suddenly remembered, I packed it first , days ago, and placed it with a bunch of kitchen utensils in a box. Very half-assed packing job and grouping too, no wonder I forgot. I am losing my mind. I feel crazy, gaslighting myself.

I cannot control my heat so I am forced to put on thicker socks, etc. open the window when it's 10°F (-12° C) out. This has been discussed in another thread somewhere, I know. Anyway, such is life for many thousands of Chicagoans - I'm guessing New Yorkers, too.

― (*・_・)ノ⌒ ☆ (Je55e), Thursday, November 1, 2012 5:26 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Summertime's a problem here with that, the apartment was designed with very poor ventilation. Just a door to the balcony (a triangle with sides of about 10ft) in the main room and no actual windows. So staying cool in the front room is a pain. Just tends to overheat heavily.

In wintertime I tend to wear a thermal fleece most of the time. Just got heating coming on a couple of hours per day. Have been known to sit under a blanket too. Just didn't want to set the timer to go off after an hour from when I put it on & thought I'd turn it off shortly then forgot it was on.

What the fuck was my post supposed to mean?? Put on thicker socks?

What I was trying to say is that in the winter time my apartment is really hot and I have to open a window to stay comfortable. This is a not-uncommon thing here.

I don't know why I said anything about putting on thicker socks since I the very idea of wearing socks - or any footwear - indoors is repellent to me.

Oh I get it - "put on thicker socks" was part of FFM's post that I quoted and struck through and replaced w/ "open a window" etc. Never mind. I thought I had lost my mind or told a lie.

Set the timer for the rice. It went off and I remembered registering the thought, "oh, the rice is done, time to turn the element off." But I somehow got distracted by something en route to the stove and forgot about it.

Ive set fire to several bins by punting an ashtray into them with still-glowing cig butts. But I think thats less ansentmindedness and more drunkenness, heh :/

I can't believe Underwriters Laboratories or whatever safety authority is OK with rice cookers potentially staying on forever.

Hadn't seen this thread.

My dad instilled me with a lot of neuroses about travel. I used to get so wound up by hi. Counting bags and people before we moved off but I find myself doing the same thing. More than once I've left an item of clothing behind. Most recently I left a jacket in. A cafe in Barcelona airport and didn't notice till two flights later I tried to put it on going through security in Detroit.

I can't leave for the airport without visually checking my passport and immigration docs 5 minutes after leaving the house and more than once I've had to stop a cab to pull that bag out of the boot. I try to remember not to put that bag in there but often don't. I'm so happy now that you don't need a piece of paper to he through the airport, one less thing to worry about. Things like tripit are a godsend for the absent minded traveller.

I pretty much banking not having a key item with me; socks, toothbrush, jumpers, it's a a great shame the Pittsburgh airport gap is now closed because they did a roaring trade out of me replacing stuff.

Finding out that despite thinking I'd carefully transferred all the contents of my waistcoat pockets when I went to wash the usual one I still had the bus pass in the pocket. So I thought I'd lost myself a couple of weeks cover. Slowly managed to get the laminate to open and found out that the front part was visible, so the needed part still basically functioned.

Was thinking of possibly trying to stick card to back it and instead just thoughT i'd see if they'd relaminate it for me. They - the bus ticket office just took it and replaced it, got me to fill out a form and then replaced without charge.
So maybe this should go into the happy thread, but still can't believe I managed to stick the thing into the washing machine with the pass still in it.

it's a wonder I don't wind up in the hospital sometimes

carrying two mason jars, one in each hand. glasses slip down nose, don't think for a second that I could just wait to put the jars down. adjust glasses with one hand while still holding jars, bring hand down, one jar smashes the other jar and one jar breaks with part of my hand inside it

minor scratches, a little blood. but jesus fucking christ wtf is wrong with me

frankspencergrrrl

lol you're not kidding

some mothers do have veg

The whole time I was knitting at the yarn shop yesterday I was thinking "don't forget your magazine from the kitchen table when you leave!!"

So obviously I did.

It is good that it is a simple enough pattern that I don't need to see it to finish my project, but still.

Searching my pockets for my mobile phone while talking to someone on said phone has to be a new low for me.

That's up there with 'where are my glasses oh wait I'm wearing', which I've done a few times.

'wearing them' I mean.

Well if there was ever a thread on which to make a mistake like that, it's this one.

Sitting on train, rucksack and new camera in camera bag at feet, think to self "hey better not forget yr new camera when you get off the train!" Forgot my new camera when I got off the train. Fortunately I realised within 30 seconds and the train was terminating, ran to look through the window and the bloke sat next to me was getting up and noticed it, I made 'omg yes mine thanks!' gestures through the window and he handed it to me as he got off.

Does this sort of thing ever really get anyone down? I've been struggling a lot with my absent-mindedness lately. I work in the film industry at an equipment rental house, and all the stuff I know how to do means that I could potentially be a 1st Camera Assistant, a job which would allow me to travel a lot more and make more money, as well as have a much more flexible schedule and generally do more things I want to do. However, I'm so damned forgetful and prone to doing the wrong thing in little binary choices (turn the knob right or left, is "off" the O or the I on the switch) that I really can't do that job. It makes me incredibly sad and angry when I realize how little I can trust myself in these situations and I don't really know what to do about it.

Seems like you should be able to learn those little mechanical things, it's just like any other skill, right? Focussed repetition, directed practice, mnemonics if necessary. And I think you can train yourself to be better at not forgetting appointments and things to done. More general absent-mindedness like leaving shit on trains though, idk.

Actually if you treat "not leaving this bag on the train" as just a regular to-do list task then I think you can get better at that. The way I deal with remembering appointments and tasks is that it's no good just to say to yourself e.g. "remember to go to the shops after work". You have to visualise doing the task - or rather, visualise the moment when you would break from your normal routine to do the task. So if there is some point where you would turn left to go to the shops instead of right to go home, visualise that moment. Repeat it over and over in your mind for as long as you can until you go nuts or until, more likely, you naturally stop and think of something else. You'll probably find it popping into your head again during the day, which is good and you can rehearse it a bit more. Then when the moment finally comes, or even before, you'll have primed yourself to remember to do what you have to do. So in the leaving shit on train example, when you get on the train just rehearse in your head picking up *all* your bags when you get off.

The minor flaw in this plan is that you might forget that you actually have something to remember! Or forget to even use the technique. But I think as you use it more it does come more naturally.

given that i did actually leave shit on the train i'm still learning.

It's not a matter of training or knowing the right thing, unfortunately. For example, the O on a switch indicates that it's off. Because it's an open circuit. The I indicates on because it's a completed circuit. I've known this since my dad taught me how to do A/V stuff when I was a little kid. This is something I've practiced and been conscious of more than half my life. Yet yesterday I stared straight at a switch that was on, thought I had it right, and plugged in the light, throwing a 1000 watt light in my coworkers' eyes. Not even close to the first time I've done this. Which isn't like an "oh he's just a little spacey" kind of thing in this industry, it's "scream at that man and never hire him again, he's going to get someone hurt."

;_; sorry man i have no better tips for you. can't believe this is an insoluble problem though.

maybe you need to come up with a new mnemonic to help you remember. if it's been happening a lot. sometimes we unlearn things and you just have to dig in and do the work to help your old brain remember again. but I know mnemonics aren't for everyone so ignore at will :)

but more importantly, give yourself a moment before you flip the siwtch next time. maybe you're just rushing yourself too much with that one thing because you *should* know it, and you've got a kind of anxiety about it now. you know how to do it, it's just buried under the static your brain is throwing you. take a moment, draw a deep breath, and dig back into your memory file it'll come. give your brain time to catch up maybe?

Sitting on a train, stabbed over and over again on play button on iphone, but it would not resume the song I'd been listening to. Tried different songs. Tried different views. Re-started iphone. Didn't make any difference. Then remembered that I'd taken my earbuds out when I'd shown my ticket to the ticket check lady.

gave the pie shop woman £1.40 for my £1.47 pie today. Luckily she too had to look at the coins for a good few seconds before it dawned on her it wasn't enough. I think it was the £1 coin + 20p + 10p + 10p that threw us.

xp hahaha

i hit the drivethru on my lunchbreak, took extra care to count out $6 for the meal ahead of time.
handed money to cashier, he says "uh you only gave me $2, it's $6 for the meal" i say "i gave you a five and a one, right?" "no, just two ones"
facepalm. i didn't even check what was in my wallet, i just assumed I still had a $5
i sheepishly handed him my debit card, lol

Sitting on a train, stabbed over and over again on play button on iphone, but it would not resume the song I'd been listening to. Tried different songs. Tried different views. Re-started iphone. Didn't make any difference. Then remembered that I'd taken my earbuds out when I'd shown my ticket to the ticket check lady.

Nice one! Are you on a V1a train? You may have seen my husband, he's working today!

No, I'm in the UK now and have yet to experience V1a - much anticipation as I hear it makes Amtrak look like, well, Amtrak. Suspect it may pwn many UK train companies too.

It's got a lot of heart but I don't think it's really an exceptional service anymore, sadly. Enjoy the UK!

First time to this thread, two things:
1. Somebody missed a flight because security line was slow and couldn't hear boarding announcements in that area. Blamed self a bit because didn't keep up with time. But don't you have to go through the security line to board? Sorry for hick question, but I haven't flown since 9/11, haw haw it's true.
2. xp leaving bags---Eudora Welty was a good photographer, and a friend in France asked her to take pictures of a family reunion in the suburbs of Pari.s It was the last time all of these people would be together: some of them were old; many worked and/or lived all over the world (this was when the French still had an empire of sorts). It was an amazing occasion, a mercurial atmosphere. The people and the estate and the day were photogenic as hell. She was on the Metro, in a massive afterglow, when she realized she'd left her camera bag on a station bench. So she worked her way back, stop to stop, and of course it was gone. She decided then and there that she did not deserve to take another picture. As far as I know, she never did.

right, so, it takes me MONTHS to print documents out whenever i need to, even if it's for claiming expenses or whatever, because i don't own a printer and remembering to go to an internet café is a hassle. so when i went to my parents' for xmas i printed out a ton of pretty overdue and important stuff. for "safe keeping" when travelling home i think i put them in the pages of a magazine i hadn't finished reading.

obviously completely forgot. obviously recycled the magazine. obviously remembered the day after the recycling men had come. FML FML FML FML FML FML FML

"i'll just put this important thing in [weird, immediately forgettable place], i'll never forget this" is p much the bane of my stupid life

this is just a "why the fuck do i have no life skills whatsoever" week right now. the harder i try the worse the inevitable disaster feels

i think there were also some amazon and naked wines gift vouchers in that magazine :((((((((

lex, have you considered hiring some poor college sophomore or something as your personal assistant? All they'd really have to do would be to print things out for you once a week and bring them round, call you to remind you to do things at certain times, etc. You could offer to pay by the hour or the task, whatever works?

Assume they would also open your mail and sort it into to-do piles and put them in specific places like "this box in front of the tv where you have to look at it" or something. You know.

unrelated: yesterday i sat at the dining table & wrote out my grocery list. i went into the kitchen for something, and then when i came back to the table to grab the list, i couldn't find it anywhere.
Hunted high & low for 15 minutes til I found it.

...scrunched into a ball in the recyling bin.

wtf, brain.

This seems like a good time to mention my worst case of this.
It was August 2001 and I had plane tickets to fly NC-OH for a wedding in September. I couldn't miss it. My mom had mailed the paper tickets because she was kind enough to buy them for me.

I lost them. Just totally utterly lost. I had to buy new tickets because I couldn't tell her that I lost them.
Then while I was there, 9/11 came and went and I had to take the Greyhound back from NC so that ticket $ was lost twice. (Once was my fault, the other not so much).

When I got home, I found the envelope with the tickets "safely" tucked away in my undie drawer. I was so mad at myself, I wrote in huge block letters NEVER LOSE ANYTHING AGAIN on the envelope with the tickets still inside. I still have it. It's in the drawer next to the undies and it is my testament to being more mindful of what I'm doing with the things that are in my hands, making lists, etc.

maybe you needed to change your undies more often

i should make more lists but then i'd presumably just lose the lists

xp - maybe

i write the list on my hand when it's really important

also i use full sheets of paper for full-day lists and then tape them to the kitchen cabinet at eye level -- can't lose/ignore it that way

On the few occasions when I've had something I absolutely cannot lose (always a ticket of some kind, basically) I put it in an envelope, write "TICKETS" on it, and tape it to the wall above my dresser or somewhere else my gaze lands often. That way a) it's in plain sight, b) I can't accidentally sent something on top of it, c) my eye lands on it a lot between now and when I need it, so I can't forget where it is.

xp!!!!!! mind-meld

i'm definitely working hard on being a reformed space cadette.

we have a drawer dedicated to tickets, plane/concert/football etc.
it works well! that way part of the routine before you go somewhere is to ~visit the drawer~

i mean, being mindful of where you put them after that is another thing entirely.

i usually "show myself the tickets" at least once before i leave and once on the way, so i know i have them and where they are on my person

put it in an envelope, write "TICKETS" on it, and tape it to the wall above my dresser or somewhere else my gaze lands often.

I have a file on my PC desktop named "where stuff is.txt" and I write down where I've put things for longer-term storage. Like when I go on vacation and want to hide my car keys, cameras, etc in case someone breaks in. And just generally where I store stuff I only use every few years.

this morning pigeons were trying to nest in our air conditioner again (long story) so I pocketed my keys and got some biro canisters and some packing tape and some scissors (to fortify the pigeon fence I built on saturday) and couldn't find my keys anywhere. turned the place upside down. I couldn't get out to the air conditioner (or even leave the flat) without them so obv I was going off my head. this went on for like 15 minutes.

lex, have you considered hiring some poor college sophomore or something as your personal assistant? All they'd really have to do would be to print things out for you once a week and bring them round, call you to remind you to do things at certain times, etc. You could offer to pay by the hour or the task, whatever works?

oh god i consider this all the time. call it an internship and i don't even have to pay them. all that holds me bac is the sense of shame at letting anyone see how my life is currently "organised"

*back

1. Lost one earring at some point and walked around work with one giant silver hoop for god knows how long.
2. Lost my favorite winter hat.
3. Lost a barrette that was actually holding my hair up so don't even ask me how that happened.
4. Got in the elevator to go home finally and forgot to push any buttons.

haha I do the standing in the elevator without pushing a floor button all the time.
or I push it for the floor I'm on and the door closes and BING opens again

Jeff said he does that sometimes, too. I feel better about that one.

Super bummed about the earring, though. Now I have to wear my backup silver hoops until I can find a replacement.

1. Found one earring on the floor of my office.
2. Found my favorite winter hat sitting on a filing cabinet by the printers, where I guess I dropped it on the way out of work on Friday.

I must have been having a bad day on Friday.

heard a car alarm going off in the wee hours of this morning
it seemed v distant, peered out the window to see if it was our main car, which we park out front.
remember going off to sleep giggling bcz the battery on the car seemed to be dying and the alarm was making v sad funny noises

we keep our other car in the driveway. it occurred to me around lunchtime this morning that the alarm I had heard was kinda similar to that car, and not the one we park out front.

a quick email to mr veg and lo and behold, driveway car battery is indeed dead as a doornail. Boo.

I don't know WHY it didn't occur to me to check the other bedroom window, I could have disabled the alarm easily if I had realized it was that car. Stupid fuzzy half asleep brain.

xp carl agatha, my sister just now said she'd finally remembered to pick up her earrings at the jeweler's. Got 'em tightened so they don't fall off. I (ignorant male) had no idea that could be done.

Searching my pockets for my mobile phone while talking to someone on said phone has to be a new low for me.

― Go Narine, Go! (ShariVari), Saturday, December 15, 2012

Oh, I think I've plumbed those depths, a few weeks ago:

Me: "Has anybody seen my cell phone?"

Daughter: "Have you looked next to your ear?"

Me: "Um, oh"

(Yes, there it was, in my right hand; I was on hold, whilst apparently "multi-tasking"...).

xp carl agatha, my sister just now said she'd finally remembered to pick up her earrings at the jeweler's. Got 'em tightened so they don't fall off. I (ignorant male) had no idea that could be done.

― dow, Wednesday, January 23, 2013 12:37 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I didn't know this either. Are they clip ons?

humbling, sad moment for me this evening

after yet again catching the cord of my earbuds on the corner of a kitchen drawer and watching my iphone go clattering to the floor, and exclaiming loudly in woe, i complained to mr veg about this always happening to me. He commiserated and said I should try putting the cord under your sweater. So I took the phone and started trying to feed it through the neck of my sweater. And he looked at me sort of funny and I was like, what? "I can only feed it down down, or I have to feed the buds up through my sweater and that would be more annoy--" and he asked for the phone and I handed it to him and he unplugged the earbuds from the phone, and dropped it down the neck of my sweater and I swear, I exclaimed as though he had just made a quarter appear out of my ear. OMG I HADN'T EVEN THOUGHT OF THAT.

I've sunk to a new low. I think I need a new thread. VegemiteGrrl's home for the very stupid. LOL

i'm having trouble with the mechanics of that. he unplugged the earbuds, *then* dropped the phone down there? so what happened to the earbuds?

it is 2 am and we are in like week 39284729847239842 of the stupidest heatwave ever so i may be even dumber than usual

no dropped earbuds were in my ears, he unplugged the earbuds jack from my phone so that the cord was free of the phone, dropped the cord down, while ALSO holding onto the phone. which he then plugged in once the cord had been fed down.

slot a into slot b then c through f

ah, got it

Today: Finish lunch at work desk, take bottle of Sriracha to meeting instead of notebook.

hahahaha omg that is awesome!

winner!

That's literally the coolest thing anyone has ever done.

Lolol amazing!

- Decided last week to transfer rent money from Chase account to ING account.
- Been spending and spending from Chase, yet not getting a balance alert text message. I'm rich!
- Mistakenly transferred money *from* ING *to* Chase.
- Been spending rent money on cat toys and falafels.

And this is still amazing

Today: Finish lunch at work desk, take bottle of Sriracha to meeting instead of notebook.

― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, March 8, 2013 11:42 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

LOLOLOLOL

I just pasted this into a calendar invitation for work:

Today: Finish lunch at work desk, take bottle of Sriracha to meeting instead of notebook.

As an aside, the whole story of Sriracha is kinda fascinating. "Huy Fong" was the name of the crowded Taiwanese freighter David Tran fled Vietnam in.

My job involves maintaining/monitoring some scripts which process files people upload and email them error reports, and when I test them after changes/upgrades I am really bad at remembering to tick the box which says "don't actually check the upload area and don't email anyone" for test runs

so once again today I ran the script and emailed some real live users with about 6 billion error messages and then had to send out "please ignore this email" messages and wonder if everyone else screws up this often or if it's just me

(geeky postscript: someone is probably going to say "you should really have separate live and testing environments" and I'll say "we do but I keep overwriting the config from the live version which is in subversion" and yes I should really make it so that I can't do that any more)

Dumped the remains of bag of what I thought were ice cubes in my iced tea; slurped with gusto. Not ice cubes; onions.

hahahaha oh no!

irl lols oh no

Onion tea soup, eh? That's strongoesque.

Worst part is that I like eating ice, and the onions looked like perfect chewing ice.

once in elementary school i was supposed to go out to recess but i couldn't find my snowboots (wisconsin in winter) and was looking frantically for them, eventually enlisting the teacher's help to scour my locker, the areas near my locker, the lost and found etc. recess was over by the time i realized that i was wearing my snowboots.

the most disastrous example of an onion/iced-tea mixup i've ever had is when i accidentally used trumpet valve oil as contact lens rewetting drops.

Terrible!

As a former trumpet player and vision-challenged person: lol.

oh my je55e you are killing me, lolololol

thank god I made this thread

story is even funnier if you imagine they were whole onions

reminds me of this classic routine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ2ow5lo4VQ

lol to both things

took a lot of replaying to translate that video to English

in one of my college houses, apparently I was so notorious for leaving things out/around that my roommates just started putting them in my room. Like I'd find a bottle of barbecue sauce on my desk, or a loaf of bread on my window sill. Thing is, being absent minded, I would assume I had just absent-mindedly put it there.

Of course then there's the time I unstrapped the baby in her high chair and walked into the kitchen with her sitting there unstrapped. thank god H was sitting there to catch her/yell at me.

i've always felt that absent minded people are the best people.

Until they leave the bathtub running in the upstairs apartment and it overflows.

i put a still-hot pan on a wooden countertop in my apartment in copenhagen, leaving a very visible ring that, for some reason, the landlords never made me pay for. i like to think of it as the distinctive mark i made on that country.

absent minded people are the best people to put your ipod through the wash

i lost seven cellphones in high school

yeah i guess absent minded people do cause inconvenience to people.... but they don't mean anyone any harm.

it's the thought that counts when the dishtowel is on fire again

put a still-hot pan on a wooden countertop

just put one on a cutting board the other day

ahh, you're lucky it was just the cutting board! this countertop was seriously ruined; i don't even want to think about how much it would have cost to replace.

Ketchup in backpack; wallet in fridge.

Looking above I seem to have a lot of condiment-based mishaps.

Incidentally my friend Rebecca wrote an AMAZING blog post on the unintended consequences of absent-mindedness. This is haunting:

http://playgroundconfidential.com/2013/03/21/when-it-rains-it-pours/

"I forgot to use a condiment" is not an excuse

Making coffee this morning, I nearly poured milk into the kettle.

Not sure if this is absent-mindedness, but -- last night I broke wind while walking out of the office, and was so embarrassed I sat down immediately at my desk and pretended to do work for ten minutes. Nobody mentioned anything.

Leaving the office, I was so distracted I crossed the street without looking and got side-swiped by a motorcycle driving on the wrong side of the road. Just missed me by inches. So basically, yesterday I almost died because of a fart.

did the "putting electric kettle on the stove" thing yesterday.

In someone else's absence, I've unexpectedly inherited a work task which would be very easy and potentially disastrous to screw up by missing something out of a labyrinthine assortment of contradictory spreadsheets. Like, if I get this wrong some of our stock will become permanently unorderable and there'll be a complicated nightmare of trying to recall things which will already be out in the wild.

I know absentmindedness is not necessarily the same as disorganisation (I've got both btw) but I'm here thinking "I can't even remember not to leave my housekeys in the door or in the fridge, and someone expects me to get this right?"

Might be time for you to suggest to your boss that this highly susceptible to error procedure is revised.

I think the long-term goal is that I revise it myself, but I'm taking advantage of nobody actually telling me that outright to put it off for a while, since I don't feel like I understand the procedure well enough

(but nobody else does either, any more - the person who devised it has left, and the person who's been doing it since then is absent "indefinitely" but she didn't seem that comfortable with it and seems to have put some contradictory information in)

I have the exact opposite project - my boss is making me work an insanely over-complicated spreadsheet that will literally be of no use to anyone whatsoever -- except, of course, my boss, who will tick it off their to-do list, then move on to their next poorly-thought-through project

Spent nearly a minute after work today rifling through my backpack, disgustedly looking for my book which was crooked under my arm.

aw that gives me a warm feeling of nostalgia <3

I didn’t have time to plunge it right away so I just left it. Sometimes you need to let it sit for a while anyway, y’know? And then it will flush.

Honestly this isn't really "absent mindedness" it's avoidance and laziness.

Like, it takes 5 seconds to plunge a toilet, and no, I am not aware that letting it "sit for a while" is a method of unclogging a toilet

wait where are you quoting that from?

huh, uh, wait a minute, what thread linked this blog:
http://playgroundconfidential.com/2013/03/21/when-it-rains-it-pours/

lol, wrong thread, so appropriate

lol

oh wait no, it's totally this thread, sorry:

Incidentally my friend Rebecca wrote an AMAZING blog post on the unintended consequences of absent-mindedness. This is haunting:

http://playgroundconfidential.com/2013/03/21/when-it-rains-it-pours/

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, April 22, 2013 6:22 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a friend of mind is absent-minded, like really absent-minded, and he just lived through something that might make him be less so. basically, dude was going out, he locked the door and then left the key in the door. somebody broke in (well, turned the key and opened the door) and took tons of stuff and now he's struggling with insurance issues because there are no signs of break-in etc.

Oof.

i went through a couple of months when we moved into our house where I was constantly leaving the keys in the door. usually from unlocking the door and entering the hosue, so keys were in the door while we were IN the house.

but

ugggghhh

i did that at least three times in the last place

twice overnight

Luckily, we have two doors (and a postage stamp-sized foyer in between) to our apartment because I have to take the keys out of the exterior door to use them on the interior door, where I leave them dangling in the door knob until the next time I am frantically searching for my keys.

That's the trick, really. Live in apartments that don't open directly to the outside.

Apartments w/ doors that open directly to the outdoors seem very strange to me after getting used to Chicago. It seems incorrect - like having your bathtub on the lawn.

It's like having your foot in Uruguay.

To get into my place I have to go through two locked doors and one unlocked just to get to the elevator. the elevator.

(Which sometimes - in the spirit of this thread - I take to the wrong floor, where I try to unlock somebody else's door. So I scream "Sorry! Sorry! Wrong door! Sorry!!")

Our place comes closest to a door that opens directly to the outside in that there is not a common area. We just happen to have two front doors (I'm guessing it's a weather thing. A door that opens directly to the outside would make for a very drafty living room).

To get into my place I have to go through two locked doors and one unlocked just to get to the elevator. the elevator.

Does the theme from Get Smart play as you walk to your apartment?

Jesus Christ, my posts from ~6 pm are a mess, a mess.

In reference to the blog post I cited, I think there's an overlap between laziness and absent-mindedness at times, but there are differences too. Laziness is "I'll do it later" and then you "forget." True absent-mindedness imo involves doing things that are completely illogical in a way that is not actually one iota easier, even for the moment.

lol nickn

I yelled at the outside of my local bank building because they removed the ATM machine. Then I realised I was standing in front of KFC.

hahahaha oh that's beautiful

ground the coffee, put it in the filter, turned on the coffee maker...turned away to do some things and then ran back over to the coffee maker when I realized I hadn't filled it with water.

I've forgotten to put the carafe under the coffee maker basket after doing everything else both at work and at home. At home it'll just drain into the sink, but at work it went off the filing cabinet onto the rug. Oops.

oh yeah that's the worst.

Put shampoo on my sponge instead of shower gel. They're in completely different containers and the liquids themselves are different colours, but I didn't notice until after I asked myself why the 'gel' wasn't lathering up properly.

ugh I have done so many combinations of this mistake it's sad

best one was squeezing hair glossing cream into my hand and then rubbing it all over my face like moisturizer. i don't even KEEP it with the moisturizer, I had already moisturized, i was just staring at myself in the mirror like oh god is this what senility is like ;_;

oh and spraying hairspray under my arms back when I used spray deodorant

oh my lol

A few times I've nearly sprayed shaving gel on myself instead of deodorant.

I was fixing a PC earlier today, and I just realised that I left a torch inside the case - it was still switched on as well.

Oh and I just switched it back on to see how flat the battery was, and nearly blinded myself because it's still very bright.

Spent three minutes a few days ago walking around the class and muttering to myself as I looked for a cup of coffee I had just poured; found it in the supply cupboard with all the paper, pencils, and erasers. Class got a good laugh out of it.

spacing out in the shower I twice couldn't remember whether or not I'd already washed my hair. So I may have just washed my hair three times.

^^^ this. also the number of times I get out of the shower with conditioner still in my hair is...well, a lot.

my immediate short-term memory scares me sometimes. I'll lock the door to the house and as I walk down the steps I immediately think 'wait did I lock the door' and have to go back because that is not a thing that you go to work wondering about.

You just have more interesting things to think about than whether you locked the door. Right? Like trying to remember the last three words of the second verse of that song that popped into your head.

I left my keys stuck in my front door lock for like 12 hours this weekend.

Do you people not have roommates?? Who haven't killed you yet for no apparent reason?? The one day I left the iron safety gate open on our kitchen window, I got a mid-day text on my shopping trip from an unhappy roommate.

I left ONE out of three doors open while I did my laundry up the street and I got another lecture! Two out of three doors were locked!

I don't have roommates.

Mr Veg keeps me in check as best he can, mostly by sending me faintly amused/only-slightly-annoyed text messages.

We wouldn't have made it a year of being married if my bullshit annoyed him that much

I think he likes it because it's ammunition inevitable ribbing, lol

Ugh, someone(s) in my old building used to repeatedly leave the door to the building open (i.e. fail to shut it so it locked itself) in spite of multiple notes/signs. I don't wish it on anyone, but having a break-in cures you of that sort of absent mindedness.

The morning after I got back from an out of town car trip last month, I walked outside my apartment and found that I'd left my keys in the door, and beside the door, a bag of groceries, my jacket, and a 6-pack of beer. I was tired.

took me a half hour to find my glasses after I had set them down on the bed (why i set them there i dunno)

i think i read somewhere (ilx maybe) that misplacing something and then finding it again is your brain subconsciously setting up a type of reward system

congratulations

that time i lost my favourite cufflinks for six months did not play out like a reward system fwiw

what kind of fucked up rewards system makes you feel like a total moran i ask you

looking for my glasses once a week (at least) is EXHAUSTING

i need that chain for my glasses so that i'll just have them dangling from my neck like a constantly rewarding albatross. i still won't be able to find them. I've broken at least two pair by sitting on them.

looking for my glasses once a week (at least) is EXHAUSTING

veg

um, veg

you're wearing them

lol I wish

i suppose I should mention that time i sewed a button on my coat, and only realised exactly halfway through that the button was still on the table

Keeping my Five Important Items (work phone, personal phone, keys, wallet, work pass) on a shelf by my front door (and making sure that everything goes on the shelf whenever I come back) has been a neat solution to prevent me being a brainless idiot and forgetting where everything is strewn around my flat.

I had big problems with worrying that I hadn't locked the door (though as far as I remember I always had locked it), so now I put my keys on a shelf near the front door whenever I get in and picking them up is meant to be the LAST thing I do before leaving the house and I try not to put them in a pocket until I've locked the door. It worked for a while, but once any system becomes entirely routine I don't bother remembering whether I did it or not, so the doubt is creeping back.

Like those lab mice who run mazes and there's a ton of brain activity for a new maze and then by the time the maze is familiar there's not much brain activity and the mouse probably gets out and goes "did I go through a maze? also, did I lock my front door?" (did I leave the gas on? no, I'm a fucking squirrel, etc)

(I left the bath running for hours the other day and it didn't actually flood and I don't know if that's because it fills really slowly and I caught it just in time or because the little drainage hole saved me. but I thought of this thread...)

xp I have a set place on my desk for my keys, phone, wallet, watch, and glasses. If they're not in their designated places then they're either in my pocket (keys/phone/wallet) or I'm wearing them (watch/glasses). It took years and years of losing these items regularly before I came up with this system, or rather, made myself do this. Everything outside of those five items though, and it's anybody's guess.

(and in case I still sound to triumphant in that post, I too have broken a pair of glasses by leaving them on the bed and then sitting on them)

too triumphant

Ah, you found the o.

I've found myself wondering if I locked the door when I've gone on vacation because there's always a lot of back-and-forth carrying things to the car with the door still open and I get to thinking "on that last trip from house to car did I lock the door or was I still in car-loading mode?"

So I got to saying to myself "I am locking the door" whenever I'm leaving the house for more than just going to work type trips. But then the problem is that when I think back to remember if I said that and I do remember, I second-guess myself and start thinking I'm remembering doing that for a previous trip and didn't actually do it this time.

left one of the burners on my stove on all night, two inches from my dish cloth

:/

hate electric stoves

xpost you should take a picture of the locked door with a timestamp.

yeah they are bad news bears for the absentminded

How to combat absent-mindedness...I had to buy tracing paper on the way home last night for myself and a few other teachers (provincial testing). The store was less than 10 minutes from my school, but I'd managed to forget the previous night. So as soon as I got in the car, I started saying "Tracing paper, tracing paper, tracing paper" aloud for 30 seconds at a time. I'd stop for 15 seconds, then start again. I managed not to forget this time.

Anything more than one item or one stop, I don't go out without a shopping list.

I mean if you REALLY wanted to know whether you turned your stove off or locked your door, make a short checklist of the life-threatening essentials (stove, iron(as if), door, keys, wallet, whatever) and put 30 of them next to your front door. Then each day before you leave, check all those things ONCE and date each item. Then put the list in your pocket to look at later if you forget whether you did something.

otm

i will buy a date stamp. I will turn my apartment into a Duties and Tariffs Office Under the Public Concern of His Majesty King George III.

Think of yourself more as a librarian of the necessities.

lose-y decimal system

This thread needs a patron saint--I nominate Uncle Billy from It's a Wonderful Life.

http://thefilmspectrum.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Picture-151-300x224.png

this thread came to what one might consider its logical conclusion for me today, when i missed a flight for the first time in my life (that bit is surprising, though). i wasn't even late. i wasn't hungover. the flight was at 2pm, i woke up really early and went for a run and packed, even remembered the european adaptors which i never do! set off early figuring it'd be nice to have some time to chill in heathrow. got to check-in desk and realised that the thought of my passport had just NOT CROSSED MY MIND TODAY AT ALL. my passport has been on top of my chest of drawers for months now, i see it most days. i probably saw it this morning. it just didn't occur to me that i needed it.

i frantically booked a taxi to ferry it across london for me. sadly, despite the unusual extra time i had, i was undone by london traffic, and it got to me too late. i could've got on a later flight, except it was for a whistle-stop landing to do an interview, see a show and come back tomorrow morning, and there was no room in the schedule to rearrange it to. not entirely sure what will happen now :/

Oh that's such a bummer. I have regularly have nightmares about that kind of thing.

Like, actual nightmares.

Bummer, lex. That's bad luck!

Despite many last-minute scrambles, panics while stuck in traffic, frantic excavation of bedrooms to hunt for passports, etc, my only missed plane was because the line through the security scanners I got put into went reallllly slowly and idk I guess I thought that if it was the final call for my flight there'd be an announcement or something, but then I slowly realised there weren't any tannoys or screens in the security queue area.

I find travelling really stressful and when anything goes wrong I tend to lose it completely which is uh embarrassing.

the weird thing is that i have flown a lot and i am always so ultra-paranoid about this, constantly checking my bag en route to the airport etc in case it's jumped out

and yet this time it just did not cross my mind that i needed a passport in the run-up to today.

i thiiiiiink it's because i haven't flown for a while (over a year) and i'm out of practice, plus as it was only for one night i was much more relaxed in general about what i needed

I find travelling really stressful and when anything goes wrong I tend to lose it completely which is uh embarrassing.

i pretty much lost it (not in an angry way, in a total meltdown way) first when i realised i'd forgotten it, then when i realised it hadn't got to me on time

although i sought reassurance on twitter/fb and i think the winner was probably someone whose aunt turned up on time, with all her documents, but missed her flight because she sat at the gate and stared vacantly into space without noticing her flight was boarding, her name was being called, or her flight was taking off

omg

xxp Oh yeah, I am a total meltdown person too mainly with bits of anger thrown in. I remember running like hell to get a bus once and then the straps of the bag containing the very heavy thing I'd been running across town holding broke and it was the final straw and I basically had my meltdown in full view of the bus and then I was too embarrassed to get on the bus and waited an hour for the next one instead. I don't know why I am even admitting this on the internet.

(I left my bank card on the counter in the bank today and a nice eastern European guy in paint-spattered overalls ran out of the shop after me to hand it over. thank you that guy! <3 )

I left my passport behind when going for a flight recently, fortunately I remembered about 20 seconds after the taxi had pulled away from my door. Then about a month later I left for a train, realised 2 minutes later I'd left the tickets. Went back to get them, left the house again and a minute later realised I'd forgotten the sleeping bag I needed. REALLY need a checklist by the door.

If I missed a flight I would actually literally die.

I left my passport at the customs desk and walked for thirty minutes to my gate while wearing headphones, only when I took them off to chat to someone in the lounge did I hear my name over the speakers. Had to run there & back again to catch my flight. Ugh.

Every day I take an anxiety pill in the morning, two days a week I take a Vitamin D supplement. I always remember if I've taken the latter, but literally an hour or two after I've woken up, I'm always forgetting if I took my anxiety pill or not, so then I give myself an anxiety attack trying to remember and either take another one just in case or just go without.

I'd get one of those plastic M-F tubs but I refuse to live like I'm 60 years old yet.

I don't travel much but I do a lot of dance performances with multiple costume items and I have to treat packing like it's for a life-or-death mountaineering situation: everything gets laid on my bed and I envision myself doing all the things I have to do that day and what I need for them. When I'm confident that it's all there, I put everything in the bag and then purposefully check the bed for anything I forgot.

The times I've forgotten, like, my phone, because I laid a piece of clothing over it and it was "out of sight, out of mind" are so monumentally frustrating to me that I try to protect myself from it EVER HAPPENING AGAIN.

In the past couple of weeks I've had people running after me with (a) my phone (which I had left on a table in a pub); (b) my wallet (which I had left in a crate of mushrooms). Surprisingly I've never missed a flight, not really sure how.

I thought of this thread last night b/c at 11:30, just as I got into bed, I got a phone call from a stranger who found my gym bag on a newspaper machine across the street from my house where I'd left it 5 hours earlier while locking up my bike. Amazing it was still there! And that the bomb squad hadn't detonated that unattended black backpack.

awesome

Just missed a train because I thought if I left my house at half past two I would have 20 minutes to get the 14:39. Next train was 20 minutes later so no major disaster but wtf is wrong with me :|

Read ffm's passport post, thought "oh I left my passport somewhere in the airport once too", realised I'd already posted that to this thread a year ago along with the same plane-missing story I reposted yesterday. Well, this is the thread for not remembering where we put our keys an hour ago, readers will just have to live with us also not remembering what crap we spouted on the internet a year ago.

Most of the prescription medication I've ever taken has been in day-labelled packaging and I don't know how I'd ever manage if it wasn't. Generally if I take them right before bed I don't forget them (I cannot remember them at any other time of day; shame the SSRIs I took kept me awake if I took them at night) but it's nice being able to check I really did take yesterday's just by looking at the packet.

Just spent over an hour turning a room upside down looking for a pair of jointing clamps (spring loaded clamps for holding two planks of wood together at right angles). Turned out that they were in the box with all the scrap wood. I guess that made perfect sense when I put them in there.

i just realized that i forgot to choose a career path

in actual absent-minded news, i forget if i posted here yet about the time i went into the liquor store and left my car door open. like, not unlocked, but totally open.

Omg, I did that once. Pre-anxiety meds in 2009, I was in a state of mental disarray. Was living with my then-best friend, who'd just been divorced, and about to head with him to meet my then-girlfriend at karaoke night.

I was infuriated with him at the time because he clearly didn't like that I was with someone and kept hitting on my girl, and trying to interfere. I'd actually decided to break up w/ her that night (a move I changed my mind on later in the evening, and we stayed together another 5 months!), so my mind was racing, heart pumping.

It was free ice cream scoop day at...was it Baskin? I dunno. So he wanted to go there. I had just bought $700 worth of new guitar equipment that I'd stored at my parents' place and was driving home to my place. New guitar, new amp, stand, everything. And it's in my car.

This Baskin Robbins isn't in the worst part of town, but not the best either. In my state of disarray, I leave my car to go to meet my friend, and leave the rear door wide open, with the guitar, amp, and everything exposed. For about 20 minutes.

My friend shouts at me about it and I come running over and he's like "YOU JUST LEFT YOUR CAR OPEN WITH THIS STUFF IN IT!". then joked about the magnum condoms he found in the back seat and said "congratulations" sarcastically.

I've also locked my keys in my car with the car running before, but only once.