Moments of daftness

[cromptonnut]

All this talk about drinks reminds me of my grandparents a few years back.

 

Grandad is in the kitchen, cold day, so thinks he'll make himself a cup of hot Bovril.

 

Makes drink, phone rings, he goes off to answer it.

 

Granny goes into kitchen, notices grandad's drink, adds milk and two sugars as is usual in his coffee.

 

Grandad goes back to kitchen, forgets what he had made, and knowing it's probably gone a bit cold now, takes a big swig.

 

Granny spends the rest of the afternoon cleaning the worktop and waiting for the curtains to come out of the washing machine...

[eastwestdivide]

...into the club?

 

The club? Membership criteria: 1. Human being. 2. err, that's it.

 

 

Injecting a serious note, it's the recognition that humans are fallible that makes for good safety systems and culture.

[The Stationmaster]

Keys, with me it is always keys, 'lost' keys (i.e. somebody must have moved them, it's a conspiracy, they're not where I left them etc), double checking to make sure I locked the car door (the only times I don't do that are on the occasions when I forgot to lock it), not understanding why I can't get an upside down Yale key into our front door lock and swearing blind that there must be a key in the other side because I'm not daft enough to do something like that).

[DonBradley]

Pouring myself a brandy and water, open fridge to get the cold water but grab the milk instead!

Put mixture aside for using in the next three days early morning coffee.

[Belsay Lad]

Going to make the drinks run for me and a colleague first thing on a Monday morning...

 

I drink tea, she drinks coffee, we both take suger and milk.

 

Visit staff kitchen, dish out tea/coffee, sugar & milk in correct quantities, add hot water and return to desk.

 

Take a swig from my mug and think 'this is a bit weak' (aka hot water) whilst colleague is spitting out a mixture of tea/coffee, double suger etc from her's!

[Hippo]

I've got 2 to add.

 

Once when doing a night out in my lorry, I got up at some stupid time, staggered into the services, had a wash and procedded to try and clean my teeth with Germolene. It tasted disgusting and made my mouth mildly numb.

 

The other one, was getting up late to go to work, throwing on clothes, flying down stairs and out the house, only to look at the clock in the car wich read 01:00.............. I wasn't due into to work till 6am.

 

Owen

[packetlos]

A couple of weeks ago I made myself a burger but thought the lettuce was a bit tough to chew, turns out I had bought a white cabbage.

 

I also have done a number 2 in the ladies loo in the KLM lounge at schipol, in fairness I was tired after a long flight!

[SHMD]

Not so much a “moment of daftness” but I was sure disorientated!

 

In my younger days I travelled even more than I do now!

It certainly wasn't unusual for me to visit multiple countries weekly, fixing machines.

 

One such week, (just before the turn of the century), I started in southern China (I was there a few weeks), had a days R&R in Hong Kong, then had three days in Surabaya (Indonesia) before having one night at home (in Manchester) before being packed off on another two week tour.

 

I remembered waking up, in yet another hotel room, wondering where was I.

This took some time as I was not just groggy, from getting up very very late, I was also recovering from a beer or two en-route.

I continued to lay there trying to work out where I was and failing miserably.

In the end I thought of the last few cities I had been to and quickly eliminated them from my search. I did the same for the last few countries I had been to too.

In the end I had to guess which half of the Planet I was on!!!

This worried me, so I got up and searched my computer bag for boarding passes.

 

I was in Santiago.

So much for my guess. I thought I was still in the Northern Hemisphere somewhere!

I literally felt as if I had been knocked into the middle of next week.

 

Kev.

(A beautiful city, country and people.)

[bluebottle]

Daftness is not confined to the mature and elderly. One day, when I was about fourteen, I walked as usual to the stop to catch my bus to school, falling into a daydream as I waited. The bus arrived, a few people got on and I watched it start off again and disappear down the road, leaving me thinking: “I've forgotten something here”. I still feel aggrieved that my perfectly reasonable explanation: “Please, sir, I forgot to get on the bus” was not accepted as sufficient exculpation when I finally arrived half an hour late.

 

(Edited for grammar)

[skipepsi]

I started even earlier, I was going home for dinner every day one morning playtime I put my coat on and trotted off home. It very slowly dawned on me that my brother and sister were no where to be seen or any other kids that went home for dinner. Scuttled back into school and got told off for moving after the whistle

[Ashcombe]

Looked at several of these yesterday and couldn't come up with anything in my experience. I wouldn't say I was feeling smug but ........

 

Last night in the interval I rushed to the backstage kitchen to make coffee for a lady with a quick change into many layers (the washerwoman) for the opening of Act 2. In my haste I failed to notice that the kettle hadn't boiled! Luckily, the microwave meant that the drink wasn't wasted.

 

 

[PLD]

At work we have an electronic keypad (4 digit code) to enter the building. I've lost count of the number of times I've proved the number is different to the PIN for my debit card...

[Sidecar Racer]

At work we have an electronic keypad (4 digit code) to enter the building. I've lost count of the number of times I've proved the number is different to the PIN for my debit card...

 

And just when you have it memorised they change it again ,

[Allegheny1600]

All this talk of drinks, food etc.

When I first lived on my own, I remember the first pizza I ever cooked under the grill - it had a horrible plasticky taste as I hadn't realised that you also needed to remove the polystyrene tray underneath it! (ugh!)

A few years later, I got into growing your own - one of my favourites was always pickles. This particular one that I made, I found to be rather crunchy as I forgot to cook it first! Wish I could remember what it was though!

Cheers,

John E.

[Coombe Barton]

Me - yesterday. Have laptop with memory stick and keyboard mouse sensor plugged in as I was using it for a screen demo. Walked back to my office and took out memory stick and put in in main PC to copy some stuff across.

 

Then the laptop wouldn't respond to mouse or keyboard.

 

Thought I'd lost the radio dongle , so retraced my steps over a convoluted walk across the campus - nothing.

 

Got back to office 20 minutes later to discover that the laptop mouse was controlling the main PC

 

And the memory stick I was trying to copy stuff onto was still sitting in the laptop.

 

Use of technology fail!

[Captain Kernow]

As the topic title mentions daftness, did anyone else when they were a kid think the phrase "daft ha'porth" (pronounced with a silent H) had something to do with monkeys or apes? My other half and me both thought the same - she'd made a connection with "monkeying about".

:lol:

 

When I was a kid, I used to wonder exactly what a 'dapeth' was!...

[Captain Kernow]

One more from me - how often have you paid for something with a credit card, punched in the PIN code, taken the receipt from the shop person and put it carefully away in your wallet, brain then says - 'right then, transaction now completed, you may depart'.. and off you go, completely forgetting about the items you have just purchased still sitting there on the counter, right before your eyes!

[Guest]

One more from me - how often have you paid for something with a credit card, punched in the PIN code, taken the receipt from the shop person and put it carefully away in your wallet, brain then says - 'right then, transaction now completed, you may depart'.. and off you go, completely forgetting about the items you have just purchased still sitting there on the counter, right before your eyes!

 

Wife (her again!) did something similar only recently. Paid for something, asked for 300kr (about 36 quid) cashback, picked up receipt and purchases, left the cash lying there. I rushed her back to find that the assistant had obligingly put it aside for when she returned. I think he must have noticed something about the colour of her hair...

[laurenceb]

One more from me - how often have you paid for something with a credit card, punched in the PIN code, taken the receipt from the shop person and put it carefully away in your wallet, brain then says - 'right then, transaction now completed, you may depart'.. and off you go, completely forgetting about the items you have just purchased still sitting there on the counter, right before your eyes!

One local paper shop allways makes sure I have picked up whatever I have payed for, I dont go in regularly but they still know me!

Laurence

[simon hudson]

I have been doing some cleaning polishing furniture etc and left a can of well known silicone polish on the drawers in my bedroom.Yup you've probably guessed what happened.This morning shower 6.00am wanders into bedroom reach for deodorant "Oh bother nice slippy arm pits" smelling of lavender though.

[kevinlms]

And just when you have it memorised they change it again ,

 

Happens every year. You just get used to writing the year and on the first of January, they go and change it. How many bits of paper get last year written on them, with it scratched out & corrected for the rest of the month?

 

Edit - last 5 words added.

[Fireman Sam]

Did a marvellous trick today, I sent my mobile for a trip through the washing machine.

[RJS1977]

Did a marvellous trick today, I sent my mobile for a trip through the washing machine.

 

I did that once with my season ticket to Bracknell. Odd thing was that for the week or so it took for it to dry out, it still continued to work the barriers, until it dried out completely, whereupon it refused to work!

[RJS1977]

A work colleague of my father's many years ago bought himself a large Rover saloon car. A few weeks later he went out in it to celebrate the New Year, had a bit to drink, came back to his car, drove home and put it in the garage. He'd not been home long when two policemen knocked on his front door.

"Would you mind letting us have a look at your car, sir?"

"Itsh in the garage."

"Have you used it this evening?"

"Yesh, but I hashn't been drinking, Occifer."

"Don't worry about that, sir. Please, just show us the car."

So he leads them to the garage and opens it up to reveal a large Rover saloon car.... with a blue lamp on top! The two policemen point across the road to where they've just parked his car (this was in the days before each car had a unique key!). "There's your car, sir. Now if you'll just let us have ours back, we'll say no more about it...."

[kevinlms]

Did a marvellous trick today, I sent my mobile for a trip through the washing machine.

 

I crawled under a house today to run a phone cable. Later I couldn't find my mobile anywhere. Ringing it caused a ringing sound to come from under the floor - so another trip under the floor to retrieve it. Luckily a reasonable amount of room & not too far. Of course, I'd just put my overalls, knee pads & torch etc.back in the car.

 

 

For a mobile phone, remove as much as practical, covers, battery, sim card & wash with clean hot water. Then dry thoroughly with a hair dryer. That will remove anything corrosive & hopefully, it will be fully operational. If you leave it dirty, it will probably die within a week & may be too late to save.