Absent-minded? Share your tales here.

[ClaesGefvenberg]

Are you absent-minded? Speaking for myself, I have on occasion been nicknamed the professor, not due to my brilliant intellect but because of my tendency to amuse (and sometimes not) family and friends by landing myself in awkward situations when my thoughts have been elsewhere. This thread is for those of us who have such tales to share... Our own or those of our friends.

As for you who are not members of this club: Please bear with us, and have fun reading about our mishaps and perhaps our measures to avoid forgetting things

I suppose I'll have to get things started with an example of my own:

First a classic from when I lived closer to he city: I had been in doing a bit of shopping and walked home carrying some pretty heavy bags. Not until I had settled down with a book did I realize that I had forgotten a minor detail: My car! I had gone to town in my car and left it there... So, I had to confess the mishap to my wife who just went and asked me to take the trash out on my way to get the car. I did, and went to get it. When I got home, I went in and said hello to my wife who promptly asked me why I was carrying the trash bag into the house again. I honestly thought she'd never stop laughing that time.

/Claes

[sprinks]

! Oh dear! . One thing I did a few years ago comes to mind... I was sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner, and I was rather distracted, and went to reach for my glass to take a drink, but somehow picked up the soy sauce bottle and drank it! My stomach was so sore for the rest of the night. And my dad hasn't let me live it down.
But funnily enough he did a similar thing a short while back, we were eating lunch and we had these wrap things, and he had one to the side but it was sitting in a cup so all the fillings didn't fall out onto the table. So he went to get his drink but picked up the cup with the wrap in it and went to drink it!

[Madhuri]

The front door of our house has a latch like this on its front side:



A few years back, I had a job where I was to report for work at 6:00 AM, which means I had to get up really early. That particular day, I guess I was very sleepy, and even after a shower my sleep didnt go, I was in a hurry to get ready and leave. While leaving the house I was so absent minded that I locked the door from outside. When my parents got up, and had to go out, they were not able to open the door. Then around 9, our maid came, and she opened the door for them. My poor parents, I had locked them inside

I didnt realise what I did. When I came back, my father asked in a very angry tone -- Did you lock the door from outside? I was like -- Me? locking the door? What for? And I was thinking -- Oh no, today is the lecture day, it seems. Then he explained the whole incident that had happened, and I laughed so much

[kasie]

This goes back to the long-ago days when we had milk delivered to the door. I don't know if I was absent-minded or just tired, like Madhuri, but one night I set off for bed with a clean milk bottle to put outside the door for the milkman to collect in the morning and the radio so I could listen to the late night news while having a bath. I started to fill the bath, went to the front door and put the bottle outside. When I came back to the bathroom I could not make out why it was so quiet and why there was a milk bottle on the shelf - went back to the front door and there was the radio happily burbling away to itself on the doorstep. Oh, and my neighbour from the flat upstairs who had just come home was standing in the porch looking down at the radio with a rather bemused expression. He went on giving me wary looks for some time after that.

[ClaesGefvenberg]

I was sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner, and I was rather distracted, and went to reach for my glass to take a drink, but somehow picked up the soy sauce bottle and drank it!

My poor parents, I had locked them inside

went back to the front door and there was the radio happily burbling away to itself on the doorstep.

That is exactly the kind of stories I had in mind. More please...

Oh, and here is a little episode told by a coworker of mine:

To get his trash collected he has to put the bin at a nearby road, a couple of hundred meters from his house: This he usually does in the morning, before going to work: He simply hooks it to his car and leaves it there, and then collects it when he gets home. Right. Off he goes one day, in a bit of a hurry and half way to work, doing 110Km/h, he notices an increasing noise behind him. What he had been hearing was the wheels flying off the trash bin... There was also some rather violent flapping from the lid and there was rubbish all over the road behind him. Absent-minded? You bet!

/Claes

[wilbur lim]

Greetings ClaesGefvenberg!
I would to share my absent-minded day.It has hitherto happened while I am at school.
You may conceive that I might have not paying attention at class or had forgotten to bring my homework.Well,this is too corny,and well,that's not what I am endeavouring to say.
It is I,writing some sentences like 'How great thou art' and other nonsense on my friend's dairy book ,under the desk of the table.My form teacher realized that and she thundered at me to hand her the book.Her unblinking eyes flashed with wrath...
I endeavoured to elucidate that I was bored.But she,well,I don't want to cite anymore as this is would be humiliating...

[Virgil]

What a great idea for a thread Claes. I hve to admit I've got many I could give.

But let me give you the most serious one. This happened last February I think. I actually included this in my blog as an entry. Where I work the parking lot is enclosed by a curb that goes around it except for two openings, one at each end. That Friday in February I wanted to get out fast and go home. I got in my car and I was eating an apple and the sun was relatively low in the sky and directly into my eyes and I was to make a right turn once I exited the parking lot, but instead of going to through the exit I veered to the right anticipating the right turn. The car went smack into the curb and came to a sudden halt and the air bags deployed, pow, smacked me right in the mouth. I didn't know what happened. It was like one second I was moving and the next the world was vibrating and I smelled the propellant that deploys the bags and I was completely stunned. No harm done, no damage to the car, except for the air bags, which cost me $2000, and no harm to me except my pride.

[SleepyWitch]

back in highschool, we had an exam in Latin where we had to learn about some Roman philosopher/ orator or other. On the day before the exam I was really anxious and decided to go for a bike-ride to take my mind off all that Latin.
but I kept reciting the biography of the philosopher to myself as I peddaled along and my sleeve got caught on the handlebar. I fell off my bike and hit my head on the pavement. ouch!

[Pensive]

I wonder if this comes in absent-mindedness but I guess I can include it in that. We had this history exam where we were asked that who was responsible for Jallianwala Bagh massacre and I who had explained the whole event to girls in my year just in the morning, and had narrated it for my father the day before that, while answering the questions felt at that time I knew nothing. I just knew there was a 'D' in the name so absent-mindedly, I wrote down the only foreign name with a 'D' present that I could think of instantly without giving any second thoughts and that was 'Herald'. If it were Dyair or even Dyes the teacher might have forgiven me, but I mean come on for Herald (instead of Dyer) you are going to get a zero.

And then there was this question where we had to name a Pushto poet. Two invigilators were talking to one another and one of them mentioned the words 'Khan Baba' and I who was bothered by their talks had this 'Khan Baba' all in my mind. And funnily the Pushto poet I wanted to name was 'Rehman Baba' but in all the absent-mindedness I wrote down 'Khan Baba' for it. Again, I was not going to get any mark for that.

Oh and once we were to tell the properties of blood capillaries. Instead of writing 'they are one cell thick' I wrote down 'they are one cm thick' because I was busy thinking about the next question where we had to do some measurements in centimetres.

Hmmmm and it often happens to me that I have the pen in my own hand and am searching for it in the entire house. In school during break time sometimes I take a walk in the school-ground and occupied in my thoughts don't hear the bell that rings telling us break is over. Will have to say am pretty much absent-minded.

[InspireMe]

this instantly reminded me of an occurrence that happened when i was a kid. my family and some friends were on a bus in korea. after a long ride we finally arrived to our bus stop. we piled out and were walking away when suddenly my mom says, "where's ryan!?" (my older brother who was about 5 or 6? i can't remember) it turns out my brother was absent-minded and didn't notice we all got out! and apparently all of us were also absent-minded to not realize he wasn't with us! luckily he got off before the bus went too far! it's funny to think back on now.

[Virgil]

back in highschool, we had an exam in Latin where we had to learn about some Roman philosopher/ orator or other. On the day before the exam I was really anxious and decided to go for a bike-ride to take my mind off all that Latin.
but I kept reciting the biography of the philosopher to myself as I peddaled along and my sleeve got caught on the handlebar. I fell off my bike and hit my head on the pavement. ouch!

Well, that explains a lot of things.

[Shalot]

I put a $20 instead of a $5 in the parking lot pay thingie. I had some $5's and a $20. I was in a hurry and thought I had pulled out one of the $5's. I rolled the bill up and put it in the metal slot.

Later, when I was going to get something from the cafeteria for lunch, I noticed that instead of having 3 $5's and 1 $20, I had 4 $5's. DOH

[papayahed]

I am horribly bad at keeping tickets to concerts, shows, etc.. whoever I go with has to keep the ticket and give it to me in line just before we get to the ticket taker. A few years ago a friend was getting married in California. Two friends and I decided that since we were going all the way out there we might as well extend the trip and make it a weeks vacation. We had the week all planned out, my job was to get tickets to a San Diego Padres game which I did. I think one of my friends even asked if I wanted them to hold the tickets but I declined. Long story short we're in California with an empty ticket envelope and the tickets are back in Michigan sitting on the kitchen counter where I set them down so I wouldn't forget to pack them.

Luckily for me, I bought the tickets with a credit card and all I had to do was provide the credit card and ticket people were able to reprint the original tickets.

[ClaesGefvenberg]

Long story short we're in California with an empty ticket envelope and the tickets are back in Michigan sitting on the kitchen counter where I set them down so I wouldn't forget to pack them.

A coworker did the same thing when he was going for a business trip... Slight commotion at the airport, of course, but his real problems started when he got back:

He had been forced to call for help and asked the person helping him not to tell anyone.... Yeah, right. The result was that everyone knew about it, and he found his room room plastered with poster size copies of the tickets he had left on his desk

Before you ask: No, it was not my doing, even though I must confess that I was strongly in favour of the gentle "reminder".

/Claes

[Janine]

Ok, I have some good ones. This was the most traumatic I think. I was going to make dinner one night and took out fish bought that day - however, I noticed right away it smelled way too fishy, so I decided I had to take it back to the grocery store. I also had to stop at the pharmacy for a prescription. Now picture this - both of these items were in white plastic store bags - so I just throw them both on the seat of the car and proceed to the grocery. I go in with the bag and never look in it and take it to the front counter, explaining that the fish smelled badly - they did not even open the bag to check and refunded my money - a mere few dollar. Later that night I noticed this horrid smell in my upstairs and all night the smell got worse and worse. Now I went to bed and then it all dawned on me...I got up in a panic and checked the prescription bag and you can imagine what I saw inside the bag - duh...to my horror I realised I had taken the prescription to the grocery, thinking it was the fish! Luckily this story does not end tragically. Of course I could not sleep at all that night and next morning called the store, fully expecting they would say they just tossed the rotten fish (my medication) in the dumpster or garbage disposal. At first they said they did not have it and then later they called to my relief and said they found it; some kind soul had retrieved it and put it into a store safe. I was lucky that time! Whew!

Once when my son was really small, maybe not quite two, he was toddling around behind me, as I was dusting the house living room and then I went out onto the porch to get something and the front door closed and locked behind me. I told him to stay there and he was really good and did so. Luckily I found something to pry appart the door molding and take the glass out of one of the panels; then I could reach in and unlock it. Another time I got locked in the bathroom while my son slept in his crib in the afternoon and I had to yell out a tiny window "help! help!" until a neighbor who was gardening heard me and came with the landlord to get me out. Maddie, these kind of go along with your funny 'lock' story.

I am sure I have tons more stories I can share - I am very absent minded and often so; I will have to recall them. This is a fun thread and great idea, Claes. It is good to laugh at one's self and our own antics!