VegemiteGrrl's Home for the Absent-Minded

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.