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Vanity Blogging

piny

The antibiotics thing is nothing new, by the way. I’m pretty absent-minded in general.

My best ever absentmindedness story is this: One semester, my day started at ten in the morning Monday through Thursday. On Friday, however, I had a discussion section at nine in the morning. I could not for the life of me remember that, and so I missed that section at least eight or nine times out of fewer than twenty sessions in all. It wasn’t an excuse. It wasn’t because I was overtired or too busy or because I wanted to sleep in. I just forgot, over and over and over again. So then I’d have to go and find the very nice grad student who taught the class, and tell him that I’d, um, forgotten I was enrolled in it. Again.

What dumbass things have you done?

27 thoughts on Vanity Blogging

  1. Wow piny… I still have nightmares about being in a situation like that, even though I’ve been out of college for several years. And it never actually happened to me. For some reason it’s just (apprently) a very deep subconscious fear of mine!

  2. Amber, I have the same nightmare! I am still in school (Grade 22 or so) and I repeatedly dream I entirely forgot I enrolled in a class, never showed up, and am now failing.

    But as to actual dumbass forgetfulness, my Attention Deficit Disorder ensures I’ll never have any shortage of those moments. I once forgot to show up for an oral exam. I didn’t bring an electrical outlet converter along with my laptop to a conference across the Atlantic. I’ve walked away from checking into a flight without actually taking the boarding pass. And the things I’ve lost: keys, money, my passport, important documents, my sanity, my watch, my clothes. I walk into doorframes and light standards on a regular basis. And medication… wait, I didn’t take mine this morning. Thanks for reminding me piny!

  3. I read the exam timetable wrong my first year of university and actually missed a final.

    Luckily, my school had an unofficial “freshman idiot” policy whereby one such instance was forgiven, and only one. But I felt like a complete dumbass, because I was.

    Oh, and I have accidentally booked non-refundable, non-changeable flights for the wrong dates, necessitating a whole nother ticket purchase without a refund… TWICE.

  4. The other day I wore my shirt to work inside out. It was a slightly-oversized button up shirt that I salvaged from the not-that-dirty laundry and just pulled on without thinking.

  5. Good post 🙂

    Just the other day, I posted about how I showed up at work (where I’m expected to dress professionally) not realizing I had never changed into my work shoes and was still wearing flip-flops! And the sad thing was I really thought I had it all together that morning.

    At least I remembered my pants.

    From now on I’m keeping up with my pedicures, just in case.

  6. I broke my glasses walking into a doorframe. Not a door, mind you. A doorframe.

    I sprained my ankle standing up (this wasn’t really my fault; I was in a school play and I had to sit cross-legged for a half hour. In the first dress, the first time I actually sat instead of rolling over and taking a nap, when I stood up, my legs were completely numb and gave out from under me. I needed ten weeks of physical therapy).

    I broke a sink because I didn’t realize how busted it was and tried too hard to turn it on, and then to turn it off.

    Just today at my last day of an internship I broke the door. I have no idea how this one happened. One moment my hand was on the doorknob, the next the knob was in my hand.

    The worst is, I lost one of my mother’s wedding gifts from a relative, a hefty sum of money. This one I still feel bad about and it was like five years ago.

    Let’s see, what else… I lost my cell phone in my house for like 8 months. My mom refused to believe I hadn’t actually lost it for good and finally bought me a new phone. I found the other one like a week later. Some time ago, I did in fact lose the second phone; sadly, the first had already been discontinued (and sucked anyway).

    Oh while canoeing last weekend mine tipped over. Not really my fault (my first time canoeing in a river), but another entry in my list of spazzes.

    I’m sure I have more, but those are probably my top ones.

  7. I broke my glasses walking into a doorframe. Not a door, mind you. A doorframe.

    Omigod, I do that all the time! Not the glasses part, but the doorframe part. I just, you know, get the trajectory a little wrong, and shoulder into the doorway.

  9. My personal best is catching my backpack/purse strap on the doorknob of our office door and slingshotting myself headfirst into the backside of said door when it closed behind me… I’ve actually done this more than once…

  10. piny: I feel so much better now that I know someone whose writing and intellect I respect can be as big a dumbass as I am 🙂 Though mine wasn’t a shoulder (though I do those too), it was a face. That’s what made it especially undignified. And the fact that I then found my glasses on the floor with the earpiece still behind my ear.

  11. I have too many to list, including a truly superhuman ability to say really dumbass things to people like my boss and my mother-in-law. The best (?) one of those was when one boss reminisced about dancing to “Stairway to Heaven” in high school and I piped up with “But that song isn’t THAT old!!” It is to his credit that he didn’t fire me.

    Best stunts: 1. I drove to work with my son in his infant seat, but the straps not attached to anything. 2. On my last day at a job I backed into the boss’ car in the parking lot.

  12. I am still in school (Grade 22 or so) and I repeatedly dream I entirely forgot I enrolled in a class, never showed up, and am now failing.

    Me too, in my last semester of college, and it took several moments of self-calming when I woke, to assure myself that it really was a dream.

    Once I went to light a cigarette w/ the car lighter and locked my keys in the car. In the ignition. Engine running. My dad had to cab it over to my work with a spare set, and the gas tank was almost empty when he arrived.

    Also; I have a nightgown with a hole in it, and I repeatedly catch the hole on cabinet handles, doorknobs, etc, and get yanked backwards into whever room I’m trying to exit. The hole isn’t even that big, and it’s always the kind of thing I would never be able to do if I were trying.

    In younger years, I would regularly show up at school for the end-of-term concert, empty-handed. I played the saxophone.

  13. When I was taking chemistry, I had a permanent bump on my hipbone because I kept whacking my hip on the benchtop. I frequently catch my pants on the drawer pulls in our kitchen. I have set a tuna melt on fire. I do not know the birthday of anyone in my family except myself and my children. No, not even my husband’s. I once lost my purse three times in one month (and had it returned each time). I have worn shirts to work inside-out. I went to high school once in my bedroom slippers (and missed an exam once; not the same day). I killed an oven by neglecting to remove plastic toys from it before baking a pizza. I have peed in poison ivy on a canoe trip, resulting in a rash not easily compatible with either canoeing or horseback riding, both of which, I being at camp at the time, I was required to do. I walk into walls. I brought my cell phone home from a cross-country visit, but not the charger. I trapped myself in a bathroom once by neglecting to do anything about the loose doorknob until it came off in my hand. I once attempted to install a hook-and-eye at the top of my younger boy’s door in a last vain attempt to get some sleep, and found that there was already one there. I have been the last one to catch a stomach ailment on a camping trip, while at the very same time being in the tent with the stuck zipper. I have been humorously bitten by harmless animals: to date, garter snake, rabbit, guinea pig, mouse, screech owl, from none of which I had any unfortunate consequences; my own beloved cat, however, put me in the hospital. I once showed up for an exam that did not exist.

  14. Three weeks running, going to the lecture that started an hour before the one I was meant to go to.

    First time, I walked in and out three times thinking “We’re not studying microbiology”.

    Second time, I sat down and started reading a book and then went “Huh?” about the people who I didn’t know sitting near me. I asked the nice woman next to me and she was very understanding, having come to that lecture an hour early on the same day.

    Third time, I walked out as the lecturer was coming in and got asked if I was sure I didn’t want to take the course.

    This sequence is not emabarassing. Opening a coffee jar, opening the drawer, cutting the top off the packet of coffee, and pouring it into the drawer: THAT is emabarassing.

  15. Just the other day I forgot to wear shoes to work. The most idiotic thing I have ever done is have sex and forget I had a tampon in. I dont recommend it.

  16. I’ve had the forgot I enrolled in a class nightmare too. I did forget about a final once and showed up over an hour late. Luckily the professor was very understanding and gave me enough time to finish. I also had a bit of a reputation as an undergrad for catching things on fire in the lab. In freshman chemistry lab I managed to burn out all my nosehairs with gaseous hydrochloric acid, I blew up a fume hood, and caught my sweater on fire. Luckily no one was hurt in any of my incidents. And in senior electronics lab I managed to (very impressively) blow out a breadboard.

    I also have a tendency to get really nasty bruises that I can’t explain. I just bump into things a lot and I bruise easily. At any given moment my hips and/or legs will have at least one giant bruis that I have no idea how it got there. I fall down a lot and the door frames always get me. I’m sure there are more things I could list, but it’s all the standard absent-mindedness and clumsiness.

  17. 1, 2, 12, 17: that is one common nightmare. I never had it while in college (12 years worth) but I started having it recently. I guess it’s some cultural meme, like dreaming about being naked in public.

  18. I’ve been out of school for five years and I still have the nightmare about the course I forgot I enrolled in.

    I’ve also:
    – lost my keys in the lock of my apartment door (and been unable to find them for several days despite going in and out)

    – wasted who knows how much reagent because I forget between getting my chemicals and carrying them back to the lab station, whether this is the distilled water or the nitric acid

    – really irritated a long-suffering horse I was looking after. I’d come into his stall and he’d make happy-horse rumbles at me, and I’d say, oh you want some oats don’t you, go to the feed room, forget why I was there, grab the brush, go back to the horse, discover he’d already been brushed (and was whickering at me for oats again), go back to the supply room, put away the brush, grab the hoof pick, hoofs are already clean too… Don’t worry, he did eventually get fed.

  19. Heh. I’m klutzy and absentminded and I have a fairly serious balance disorder. I bump into things a lot.

    My absentmindedness usually manifests in really boring ways: I lose wallets and forget IDs and fail to pay bills on time and miss my bus stop because I’m lost in thought. It’s a giant pain in the ass, but it’s not especially funny.

    Once, though, I put the kettle on for tea, sat down to read a book, thought “huh, there’s a funny smell in here” and three hours later realized that I’d completely melted my roommate’s tea kettle. I’m lucky I got up before it caught fire, because I might not have noticed that the building was burning down.

    (I also have an uncanny ability to incorporate my alarm clock into my dreams. I don’t wake up. I just have a dream about a terribly annoying buzzing noise that won’t go away.)

  20. The most idiotic thing I have ever done is have sex and forget I had a tampon in. I dont recommend it.

    I think I can top that (or at least match it). I’ve put in another tampon, forgetting I already had one up there. Imagine my surprise later when I pulled out TWO!

  21. I graduated from high school in ’85 and I’m still having nightmares that I’ve skipped math class for an entire quarter and finals are looming. I wake up in a sweat and have to remind myself that not only did I graduate from high school, but that I have my college diploma sitting in a closet somewhere.

  22. Back when I had a long commute, I had the occasional problem on the weekend of getting in my car to go, say, to the grocery store down the street, and ending up on the freeway headed toward work. (I get this from my dad, who used to drive me to school. I learned very quickly not to doze in the car, or I’d end up at his place of work, rather than at my junior high.)

    But the more serious problem for my social life is forgetting events that I’ve been invited to. I receive the invitation, RSVP promptly, get all excited about the event, and then just totally forget about it until hours (or even days) after the event has occurred. The kindest among my friends drop me frequent reminders about upcoming events, for which I am grateful.

  23. I’m sure I’m not the only one who does this: I go online to do something specific, say, check my bank account. But before I do that I check some blogs. An hour later I get up to go out and realize I never checked that account.

    I once forgot my own birthday while I was on vacation.

    I’m still in college. Freshman year when I came back to the dorm from winter break I forgot all my bedding. I had to sleep in a sleeping bag for a couple weeks before I got my stuff back.

  24. ianovich:

    I do that all the fucking time. I’m probably doing it now without realizing it. I’ll let you know in an hour.

    The worst for me: My dad used to make pancakes every weekend for my sisters and me. I always had milk with the pancakes. One day, i decided that i would have milk on my pancakes. Then i realized what i had done.

  25. I’ve been having that forget to take a class dream all the time recently too. My particular variation on it is that I’m in high school stressing over a math final because I haven’t been to class all year, when I realize that I have a college degree for cryin’ out loud, so why am I here? And I always make up my mind to go to the office and tell them that, dammit, I’m over 18 now and I’m dropping out of school. But it never quite gets done.

    When I was actually in high school I used to dream that I’d missed the first class of the first day of school and so had no way of knowing my class schedule for the year. Luckily, there was this kid named Marc whose last name was right before me alphabetically, and who was usually in all my classes as well, so in the dream I would find him and follow him around.

    I would dearly love to know just what this type of dream means, especially since it seems so common.

    The dumbest space-out I’ve ever done was when I was in England once with the ex-boyfriend. We were staying with some friends in Woodstock, and the two of us had taken the bus to Stratford-Upon-Avon for the day. At the end of the day, we looked at the bus schedule posted in Stratford, then decided we needed to kill some time, so we got dinner. When we came back we realized after some waiting that we’d both read the schedule wrong, for some reason thinking that the time printed was the time the bus left the station to come to Stratford, not the time it arrived there. I’m still not sure how or why we interpreted it that way, but we got a nice room in a little b&b and the Inspector Morse episode that night had been filmed in Woodstock, the town we should have been in.

  26. I missed the first class of my first day in college because it was an extra session on Tuesdays of a MWF class that no one told me we had – they just assumed that the line saying T below the line saying MWF on the schedule card would’ve tipped me off. Fortunately, both the poem we worked on that day and the book we got assigned for the next class were old favorites of mine and I ended up impressing the professor instead of annoying her.

    I’ve burned holes in 3 different shirts with hydrochloric acid, and each time only noticed it once I felt a strange stinging on my tummy, only to look down to see the hole appearing. In that same class, I managed to forget to do the final project. Completely. While watching everyone else work on it all semester.

    I hit my head on the car door all the time, and often end up with strange triangular bruises on my shoulders and biceps I don’t remember getting from the corner of said car door. I once found my purse in the washer. To be fair, the cat put it in there. My late girlcat took my keys and hid them under the couch once.

    I’ve tried to clean the blurs off my glasses not realizing that it was because I had my contacts in.

    I could go on, but I’ll try to pretend to be competent.

  27. Oh Piny! Don’t feel bad. I wore two different shoes to work today. I felt like a dumbass too.

    (I was late and in a hurry. I don’t think anyone noticed, but if they did, they didn’t say anything. Dress code is pretty casual as well.)

    I just thought to myself “oh well, everyone does something silly once in a while, and some people don’t have *any* shoes.”

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