I have always been a bit, well, absentminded, but this is just too much. Yesterday I managed to do the most stupid thing I have ever done in my entire life.
I had two and a half hours between my daughter’s arrival home from kindergarten and the return of my older two. I put the 6 year old and the 2 year old into the car and headed out to run errands. First we went to Sam’s Club, where I loaded my cart with Memorial Day weekend necessities-beer, wine, laundry detergent. Then we went to the garden center where we spent half an hour picking out flats of impatiens and petunias.
I wheeled my cart out to the parking lot, prepared to balance my seedlings on top of my Sam’s Club purchases. I opened the back of the van. It was empty. Apparently, I had driven off after buckling the girls into their seats and neglected to unload my cart!
We drove back to Sam’s, where I discovered that some helpful person had pushed my cart back into the store, where it was waiting for me beside the service desk. No one actually laughed out loud, but there was some head shaking and perhaps an eyeroll or two.
This is so sad. Please tell me I am not the only reasonably intelligent person to have done something so incredibly obtuse?
Not me. My Mom. Which doesn’t bode well for my future, I guess.
The grocery store she frequents has a drive up where you go give them the number the cashier gave you at the check out and they load your groceries into the car. For some reason, Mom has the ocassional brain fart and is half way home before she remembers. Usually it’s when she looks over to the passanger side and sees the big blue plastic square with her number on it.
A couple of months ago, I was at Target and bought some small items that went into a little plastic bag, and two jugs of bubble bath. In my defense, it was getting dark when I got to the car; I took out the plastic bag, but somebody got free bubble bath that day.
Its okay robinh. I think that every does stuff like that from time to time.
Last year I finally broke down and purchased a nice beach chair for myself. I spend a lot of my summer at the beach and have never had a comfortable chair.
The first time I went to the beach with my new chair I remember carrying it back to the car with me. I remember leaning the chair against the car while I wiped the sand off myself and put my towel in the trunk.
Since the chair was not in my trunk when I got home I can only assume it was still leaning against my car when I drove away. You think I would have noticed!
$30 for a chair I only used once! And it was such a comfortable chair.
A couple of months ago I decided to go for a bike ride out in the country to see the wildflowers. I pored over my road atlas til I found the perfect route, then decided to take the atlas to Kinkos to get it blown up to a more usable size. So I loaded up all my riding paraphernalia (helmet, gloves, water bottles, snacks in the fanny pack) and the atlas, stopped off at Kinkos, got my perfect little bike map, got back on the highway, hit the edge of town, and …
This might be a little more common, but I seem to have a knack for it.
I live in an apartment building. The hallway and the doors on the second floor (where I don’t live) and the hallway and doors on the third floor (where I do live) all look relatively the same, except for door numbers, and a few odd decorations.
I’ve done this twice this month. Bopping up the stairs, not really paying much attention to anything. Forgetting to walk up that second flight of stairs, and end up trying to force my way into the apartment directly below mine, all while cursing out loud at the damn key, which for some reason won’t work in the door.
I live in a kind of rough section of town. One of these days I’ll probably get shot during this little maneuver.
I was just over at a friend’s house. We both left the house at the same time. I reached into my pocket,took out my car keys and then got on my bicycle and pedaled home.
Ever see a gallon of milk hit the road and explode? Well, it’s really cool, and that’s what happens when one places her milk on the roof of her car and then drives off.
Thanks, folks. I still fill pretty stupid, but at least I’m in good company!
Frannie, back in the olden days, before every car came equipped with drink holders, I travelled with a ceramic mug for my coffee. It had a wide base and narrow top, so it wouldn’t spill, and a no-slip pad on the bottom so it wouldn’t slide off the dash. I headed out one morning with coffee in hand, and when I got out of the car, there was my coffee, still sitting on the roof.
It’s a good thing that I now live so close to work and don’t drink coffee on the way. Um, yeah… what I mean is that I’ve also done the coffee on the roof thing… oh, and pop/soda on the roof… That’s all I can think of though.
After a busy, tiring day at the mall, the baby crying and the scorching summer heat outside and the oven of the car, I loaded everyone up and got in to drive home. Halfway there I realized the baby’s binky was missing. Oops! I had left it on the roof of the car. Even though I (foolishly) drove back looking for it, it was nowhere to be found. And it was the only binky!!!
My best friend has a sister, whom we’ll call Bobbi. Bobbi has 3 children, ages (at the time of the story I’m about to tell) 5, 4 and 1.
Bobbi goes to pick her kids up from daycare at the end of the day. She puts the baby into his carrier, and herds the other two little ones ahead of her out to the car. She manages to convince the two mobile kiddies into the car, and buckles them into their respective seats, walks around to the driver’s seat, gets in and drives away. As she gets to the end of the drive and is about to pull out onto the highway, her 5-year old daughter, Maddy, pipes up from the back seat and says “Mommy…where’s the baby?”
Screeching brakes. Frantic turn-around. Whips back up to the curb at the daycare center where one of the workers is just picking up the baby (still sitting placidly in his carrier) to take him inside and call Bobbi.
As a funny adjunct to this story, Bobbi’s family was preparing to move to a new house about a year later, and Maddy is really stressed out about the change (as little kids can often be). Bobbi was talking to Maddy, trying to find out what exactly she’s stressed about in regard to the move. Maddy says “But what if we forget something?” Bobbi, thinking Maddy is concerned about losing a toy or game, says “What would we forget?” Maddy fires back “Oh, I don’t know…the BABY???”
Jadis, that was always one of my biggest fears each time I had a new baby. I would have nightmares in which I went out to buy groceries and forgot to bring the baby with me. And when I did actually go out I would find myself checking the rear view mirror compulsively…“she’s there, right?”…while I drove.
I have had to deal with my children mocking me…repeatedly. And today, when I called a friend to offer her my extra tomato seedlings, the first words out of her mouth were “nice job with the groceries yesterday!” Word does get around.
beatle, I’m feeling much better now. At least I didn’t actually damage anything!.
