Sometimes all you can do is laugh at yourself

[MeghanWithAnH]

An odd topic for my first thread here, but this one was silly enough that I felt I had to share it. Maybe it won't amuse anyone but me, but I'm amused enough for the whole group of us.

I have a wonderfully soft, warm electric blanket with a separate power cord that plugs into the end of the blanket. Several days ago I put the blanket on my bed. I plugged the power cord into the outlet and set the control to a setting that usually gets me nice and warm within minutes. I never really warmed up, so I thought maybe the blanket was getting old so I turned up the setting. It still didn't help as much as I expected. Eventually I gave up and tried to turn the blanket off, but all it did was blink at me. I got frustrated and unplugged it. The next night I plugged it in again and had the same problem. I was sad because I thought my lovely warm blanket was breaking. I kept doing the same thing for the next two nights; plug in blanket, it blinks and doesn't work, unplug blanket, try again later. Then finally, today, I found the problem. I had never attached the power cord to the blanket! There it was, just laying on the floor, not attached to anything. How did I not notice it before? The world will never know. I could be annoyed with myself, but mostly I found the whole thing hilarious. So anytime I'm tempted to judge anyone for struggling with something that I think is easy, I should remember my nights of struggling to fix a blanket that wasn't even plugged in.

Does anyone else have any stories of mistakes that were so silly they just had to laugh at themselves?

 

[JDShredds]

Ever seen Slingblade? This reminds me of the scene when all the guys are confused over why the lawnmower won't run after looking over the engine and spark plugs and everything. Then he opens the fuel cap and peers in: "There ain't no gas in it."

 

[MeghanWithAnH]

Ever seen Slingblade? This reminds me of the scene when all the guys are confused over why the lawnmower won't run after looking over the engine and spark plugs and everything. Then he opens the fuel cap and peers in: "There ain't no gas in it."

I've never seen it, but that's totally something I would do.

 

[JDShredds]

Rest assured, I do this kind of thing on the regular. I don't even remember most of them because I do it so often. Today's example: I was going to do a little music recording, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out why I couldn't hear any audio. "But I was just listening to sound minutes ago!"

I hadn't plugged in my Audiobox. Kind of hard to record when its not plugged in, self.

 

[Shamar]

An odd topic for my first thread here, but this one was silly enough that I felt I had to share it. Maybe it won't amuse anyone but me, but I'm amused enough for the whole group of us.

I have a wonderfully soft, warm electric blanket with a separate power cord that plugs into the end of the blanket. Several days ago I put the blanket on my bed. I plugged the power cord into the outlet and set the control to a setting that usually gets me nice and warm within minutes. I never really warmed up, so I thought maybe the blanket was getting old so I turned up the setting. It still didn't help as much as I expected. Eventually I gave up and tried to turn the blanket off, but all it did was blink at me. I got frustrated and unplugged it. The next night I plugged it in again and had the same problem. I was sad because I thought my lovely warm blanket was breaking. I kept doing the same thing for the next two nights; plug in blanket, it blinks and doesn't work, unplug blanket, try again later. Then finally, today, I found the problem. I had never attached the power cord to the blanket! There it was, just laying on the floor, not attached to anything. How did I not notice it before? The world will never know. I could be annoyed with myself, but mostly I found the whole thing hilarious. So anytime I'm tempted to judge anyone for struggling with something that I think is easy, I should remember my nights of struggling to fix a blanket that wasn't even plugged in.

Does anyone else have any stories of mistakes that were so silly they just had to laugh at themselves?

I do this so often I refer to it as "compulsive stupidity." One episode caused me to end up spending three winters living in a tent in northern Canada.

 

[JDShredds]

I do this so often I refer to it as "compulsive stupidity." One episode caused me to end up spending three winters living in a tent in northern Canada.

Ok, I need to hear this story. What the heck?!

 

[Fino]

I do stuff like that all the time, and now I feel like I experienced what you did! That's amazing! And you're so right about the judging thing, this sort of stuff helped me be a better teacher.

I never judge anyone no matter how silly their confusion or mistake, because I'm special, too!

 

[Shamar]

Ok, I need to hear this story. What the heck?!

One summer I was on a geophysics project at a VERY remote exploration camp in northern Saskatchewan. Much of the area was lake and we couldn't do readings on the water, leaving lots of gaps. Reading through water had never been tried before, so I said I would do some tests. The tests were partly successful. I went to the client and had the following conversation:

Me "We can actually read the electric field through the water, but there is no way we can read the magnetic field. No way to make a boat stable enough."

Client "Would a layer of ice four feet thick be stable enough?"

Me (here it comes) "Sure. That would be plenty stable."

Client "Great! We'll see you here next January."

 

[Progster]

Yes, that's like me doing classic thing of not being able to find my sunglasses, and all the time they are perched up on my head.

 

[MeghanWithAnH]

Yes, that's like me doing classic thing of not being able to find my sunglasses, and all the time they are perched up on my head.

I've certainly done that one. I've also searched frantically for a phone that was in my hand.

 

[Ken S.]

I have done the same thing with power tools too many times to count. I just laugh at myself and think "Yup they work much better when they are plugged in".

 

[china autie]

I was in the hospital emergency room, a bit drunk and looking for "the pee cup" that I was supposed to provide a urine sample in. I was about to go ask the nurse where it was when I realized that it was in my hand.

Turns out I had mononucleosis.

 

[Progster]

Another thing I do is switch on the kettle to make coffee, then wonder why it hasn't boiled yet... because you haven't plugged it in, silly!!

The age-old adage "a watched kettle never boils" often has a very literal meaning for me

 

[Tom]

At one Army base I got in a lot of trouble for losing both my ID card (in a snow bank I had gotten stuck in) and car registration stickers which I misplaced in the same week.

When the new car stickers arrived I took no chances and went right out to the parking lot and put the stickers on the windshield of my silver Honda Civic and returned to work.

At the end of the day I was walking out to the parking lot with a friend and proudly pointed out the stickers on my car. But my heart began to sink when I noticed there were two silver Honda Civics parked very close to each other, and the one without the stickers looked a lot more like my Civic...

 

[clg114]

I am a field service tech and the machines that I work on are always in a warehouse. I always take a tool bag in with me, with the tools that I think I will need. But I always need something else, so I go back out to my truck to get it. However, when I get to the truck, I can not remember what "it" is. I do this because I am thinking about the job instead of what I am going to the truck for. My wife thinks that it is a old guy thing, but I do not. The first time that I did that was over fifty years ago.

 

[Pats]

I know I have mentioned loading my groceries into the wrong vehicle.
I did fix my daughter's tv, which had not been working for days, by plugging it in.
I have locked and unlocked car doors realizing later that the window was open.
I have taken a receipt back into Lowes hardware store to complain that the receipt did not match anything I had just bought, only for it to be pointed out that I was holding a Lowes grocery receipt.
And, because my sister and I sound just alike on the phone, once I called her and talked to my own echo getting irritated that she was repeating everything I was said.
So, yes, I occasionally (lol) do things that I have to just laugh at myself.

 

[Nervous Rex]

Yep, I've done stuff like this too many times to count. I sometimes tell people, "I can do Complicated all day long, but Simple trips me up every time."

 

[Judge]

Yeah, me too @Pats. Many years ago I was grocery shopping and returned to my car in a congested parking lot. Having real trouble with the key in opening my car door.

Started to get flustered shaking my head, only to see my car with my peripheral vision a few spaces over.

I was trying to get into the same make, model, year and color. Just not the same door lock.

Lucky for me the last two cars I've owned are not so common.

 

[Mia]

Me (here it comes) "Sure. That would be plenty stable."
Client "Great! We'll see you here next January."

That's fabulous Shamar. Have done some winter camping on the prairies, you spend most of your time attempting to keep warm.

On a botany field trip; Prof, 'the ferns on that mountain cliff need to be collected and catalogued'. "I'll do it" I say. Pointing next to the waterfall, 'there" he says forty feet up. 'You'll have to hammer in pitons to get up there'. 'Okay,' at this point I don't know what a piton is. "Are they like nails?" 'Yeah', close enough. It took me a long time to get up there.

 

[Pats]

One summer I was on a geophysics project at a VERY remote exploration camp in northern Saskatchewan. Much of the area was lake and we couldn't do readings on the water, leaving lots of gaps. Reading through water had never been tried before, so I said I would do some tests. The tests were partly successful. I went to the client and had the following conversation:

Me "We can actually read the electric field through the water, but there is no way we can read the magnetic field. No way to make a boat stable enough."

Client "Would a layer of ice four feet thick be stable enough?"

Me (here it comes) "Sure. That would be plenty stable."

Client "Great! We'll see you here next January."

6 hours after reading your comment- Ohhhh I get it now. LOL funny.