VegemiteGrrl's Home for the Absent-Minded

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.

Is High Street near Main St?

Yeah, but it's higher up.

Re my birthday, I told people today was my 55th. When my kid asked at me at dinner I said the same. my spouse rolled eyes and said “you are 56.” I did some slow uncertain math, and warnt I sorprised!

when i said “wow i was wrong all day,” 17 y/o snorted and said “NORMAL DAY.”

v relatable

i have gotten my own age and my wedding anniversary wrong on many occasions

what even are numbers

I managed to walk into a window a couple of weeks ago because I didn't spot the glass and thought it was an open door. AND I was holding a cup of coffee, which mixed nicely with the blood gushing from the wound on my nose. Scar is mostly gone now luckily so shouldn't leave a trace. I think there was CCTV in the room too so expect the incident to turn up on some "LOL Epic Door Fails" YT comp any time.

You broke the glass with yr face?

jeez that’s scary!

"Disappearing objects" mostly happens to me when I'm already playing the scenario that the object must be in an obvious place that I can't see, and feeling stupid / frantic / bored about it probably makes me overlook it even more. I go from room to room in circle looking for my keys / phone / wallet, checking a place visually up to three times when I already know it's not there, but my brain is too lazy / selective to search properly. And I'm 36.

Speaking of keys, I dropped mine in the door of the elevator while taking them out of a bag over the weekend. There was this cinematographic moment of silence while I heard them clinging in their fall, and I wanted to disappear too. They said I could pay or wait a month for maintenance, so I'm waiting.

The very next day, we are getting out of the car, I put my phone on top of the car, get the baby out, discuss with my wife of what bags can stay in the car. I close down the boot and hear the noise of my phone's screen getting shattered as it got stuck in the opening.

For now, I have decided this can't be clumsiness but sheer bad luck.

Like, I look repeatedly in one place, hoping that the object magically reappears

My biggest door fail, many years ago, involved me:

-- Walking through a revolving door carrying a cup of hot coffee (yes, I know)
-- Hitting my head on the revolving door
-- Stumbling outside and pouring hot coffee over my crotch
-- Dropping my coffee cup
-- Reaching down to the coffee stain and accidentally punching myself in the balls
-- Pulling my fist away too quickly and poking myself in the eye
-- The end

You broke the glass with yr face?

God no, I broke my face with the glass though! You'd have to go some to shatter an external window thankfully, that one's for the movies. Actually so is walking into a window to start with but you know what I mean.

At this point in my life the clumsiness clearly isn't going to improve, I just need to be extra vigilant at all times and never - never! - let my concentration fail, lest a similar accident occur where I genuinely hurt myself.

Oh, last year I managed to crack my skull open against the laundry dryer. I was dodging under other people's clothes to reach the lines at the back and somehow "forgot" about the dryer. I had a second on my knees taking in the shock in when I felt the warm gush spreading on my face. By the time I reached the bathroom my face was like in a movie.

Proper lol there Chuck, thank you.

haha yeah me too, thanks Mr Bean!

Fucked up twice today on automated callouts for supply teaching. Booked off for today, and at 10:00 this morning I absent-mindedly trashed the not-available request; immediately received a call to drive an hour for a half-day with a rough intermediate class. Turned it down, and I hate turning down work. Tonight, couldn't find my phone when the phone rang; it was off the charger and sitting on the recliner under a blanket. So I missed what was almost certainly a job for Wednesday or Thursday (already booked Tuesday/Friday). I'll likely get a call tomorrow night, but not guaranteed--if not, move this over to the expensive-stupidity thread.

My biggest door fail, many years ago, involved me:

-- Walking through a revolving door carrying a cup of hot coffee (yes, I know)
-- Hitting my head on the revolving door
-- Stumbling outside and pouring hot coffee over my crotch
-- Dropping my coffee cup
-- Reaching down to the coffee stain and accidentally punching myself in the balls
-- Pulling my fist away too quickly and poking myself in the eye
-- The end

― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, September 19, 2023 5:07 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Missed this. Masterful.

Yes that is Jaques Tati level.

tbh I was disappointed Chuck didn't reel backward into the revolving door at the end

I found a pair of earbuds I really like. I left one pair on a train, so I bought another. A month later I left that pair on an airplane. The third pair's case has been painted with nail polish in the hopes that my eyes will register them before leaving a place. All this has happened within the space of a few months.

i cannot imagine having to hold on personal items with your volume and sequences of travel i would end up a property-less person

yeah same, i would need all my shit safety pinned to my coat like a kid being sent off to kindergarten

I was on a flight from Miami to Atlanta last week. It was chilly, so I put on my fleece. In doing so, I took off my glasses and put them on the empty seat beside me, then forgot to put them back on. When the plane landed, I realized in a panic that they were not on my head, and were nowhere to be found. After the plane emptied out, a flight attendant helped me. She said, "Well, when we land, everything moves forward," and found them on the floor like four rows ahead of where I was sitting.

mother's day is early this year (uk). i should go to the supermarket and pick up a card there rather than making a special trip to the card shop...

and i won't pick the usual abstract card or a floral one, i'll pick one with text on it for a change. and i like that font and the way that orange clashes with that dark blue... sorted.

get home and realise it reads 'happy birthday!'

(and i will probably forget / lose it before october)

I've been doing a better job of going to the gym on the way to work, but somehow like every other time I manage to forget an item I need in my gym bag - most often towel, belt, or shoes for work. A few times I've just given up on going to the office and worked from home due to this.

Whereas today I am beltless in office and just pulling up my jeans a lot, lol

Found this year’s and last year’s registration in my glove box today with the August 2024 tag still on this year’s form, that I paid for last August. A non-required front tag? Nope. Stowed the registration on purchase and have been driving with expired tabs since September.

H A P P Y   B I R T H D A Y

you rule, despite certain lacunae that i shall not mention

Yes, happy birthday S. You are sunshine. Hope you have a wonderful day.

(the lacunae involve her failure to appreciate billy squier, just in case anyone took that seriously)

(i mean she *should* appreciate billy squier, but is kickass nevertheless)

thank you guys!

my lack of appreciation for billy squier is a feature, not a bug fyi imo iirc

hb to you vg!

Happy birthday and thank you for the painful joy that is this thread!

Happy birthday love!!

Mookie how do you feel about broccoli because she and I have faced off on this in the past

HB, vg. Whenever i see a show rec from you i take notice on account of the fact that . .. you're always right? Hope your day is lovely!