Brain Farts

While driving home from work yesterday, I was approaching a red light. As I applied my brakes, I flipped on my left turn signal and came to a stop. I sat waiting for the light to change, idly listening to the rhythmic tink-tink, tink-tink of the turn signal and seeing the little arrow flash on and off.

The light changed to green and I proceeded… straight… through the intersection. Why didn’t I turn, you ask? Because that wasn’t my turn. I go straight at this intersection every damn day. I wasn’t in the turn lane and never had any intention of turning.

Yet somehow, for some reason, my brain decided to signal for a left anyway. (Fortunately, the intersection is protected by turn lanes and red arrows, so I didn’t actually place myself or anyone else in danger.) It wasn’t until after I’d cleared the intersection that I realized what I’d done and turned off the signal, feeling very stupid and embarrassed.

I know we’ve done this before, but it’s been a while… What are your latest brain farts?

I don’t know about latest, as I have them continually (do they smell?), but I have a driving related one that still baffles me to this day.

I was sitting at an intersection, waiting to make a left turn. Light turns green, I start to turn, but halfway through the turn, I see a red light and slam on my brakes.

I was seeing the cross traffic light, and had a freakout over go! stop! go! aagh?!

I also, when heading to work on a Sunday morning, stopped nicely at a red light, then proceeded through the intersection as if it were a stop sign. The bad part? I did it 2 weeks in a row. Luckily there were no other cars around, but man, that was stupid.