Anecdata: Autopilot error

I was trying to make a cup of tea. I put water into the electtic kettle and turned it on, so all I needed was a cup and a teabag. But I was thinking about something on Kintsugi so my brain directed my body to the pantry, where I acquired a trash bag. I did not need a trash bag.

This happens occasionally when I'm not thinking about what I'm doing. I've unwrapped a stick of butter, put the empty wrapper in the fridge, and nearly tossed the butter in the trash. I can't remember any other particular examples right now.

??????

Discuss!

#i accidentally posted this before i was done #oh well i have my tea now so everything's going to be fine

 

I do this so much.

 

It's why I am really (as in RL actual rule) not allowed in the kitchen. It's not a safe place for me.

 

Kitchens are definitely the most dangerous place in the house, except possibly stairs, depending on what kind of problems with what one has.

 

Kitchens are not a great place to be if you're accident-prone or have a super-faulty autopilot, yeah.

 

I have literally woken up in the morning standing in the kitchen holding a cup of tea so that parts not such an issue for me. But one time i lost my phone and didnt find it until almost a month later, neatly folded into my set of bedsheets with the pillowcases. Just like, laid on top of the stack.

 

Heh, I did something like that with my glasses not a month after I got them. I thought I set them down on a stack of papers on the table, but when I looked I couldn't find them. A long time later - months, I think - I found them three feet away from the table, on a cabinet, in the middle of a stack of papers. To this day I don't know how they got there. This may not have been my mistake, as they were my mom's papers.

Had an autopilot malfunction yesterday, too. I found myself staring deep into a customer's eyes for an uncomfortably long period of time while I tried to access the next part of my script. (The line I was looking for was "Would you like a drink with that?")

Also seems fairly common in my family for driving to be an autopilot thing - so you can wind up home when you meant to stop by somewhere else first if you get distracted and someone else isn't there to point out that you need to turn here.

 

Oh man, I do this all the time. Watching me in the kitchen is an Experience. We're gonna order pizza? Cool, lemme just absent-minded start peeling potatoes for no reason anybody can discern. Potatoes go in the bin and peelings in the saucepan, right? wait FUCK

In terms of sheer absent-mindedness, I've spent upwards of ten minutes randomly wandering around taking things out of cupboards before I finally do something which reminds me what I was supposed to be doing in the first place. Also I occasionally do dumbass things like mix mustard into my tuna instead of mayo (for the record: mustard tuna tastes pretty okay).
I used to get a lot of "how the hell are you ever gonna be a functional adult" flak over this, but it's really more of an inconvenience than a problem. I need to factor a little extra time into cooking things and occasionally my food turns out kinda weird, but it's not a big deal.

 

I dunno if this was autopilot or what but yesterday me and my brother were in a time crunch at Walmart and they started a demonstration with a free thing so I ended up standing there for fifteen minutes and my brother ended up late for work. I was not aware I stood there for so long.

 

one time i was waiting at the bus stop and talking to my so on the phone. the bus seemed to be taking a weirdly long time to arrive, and i was worried that i'd be late for work, so i wanted to check the time. except when i reached into my pocket where i always keep my phone, there was no phone. cue alarm and telling my boyfriend that i had to hang up because i couldn't find my phone.

 

I was changing after horsebackriding and my parents wanted to go somewhere and I had fifteen minutes, and before I knew it the fifteen minutes were up and I was still not dressed...

 

Oh gods. So many the autopilot fail. Especially before I've had my coffee.

I have been caught putting cereal in the fridge. I usually catch myself trying to put milk in the cupboard on account of it being heavy.
I've tried to put various food items in the dishes cupboard.
I've put down cups on full plates/bowls because I forgot there was something already there.
Sometimes I misjudge where the door is and walk into the wall next to it/clip into the frame.
I tend to have pathing errors in the kitchen/dining room and if someone blocks a walkway (like by pulling a chair out too far) I turn into a Sim for a minute.
In fact any major re-arrangement of my surroundings has me walking into/tripping over things until I re-adjust. Sometimes this includes the dog.
I sometimes mix up trash and recycles, not because I don't know what's recyclable but because the wires crossed. I also almost recycled a metal fork once.
I've poured milk NEXT TO the bowl. Also stabbed the table with a fork.

Combination of autopilot fail and twitchiness: sometimes I use too much force for a thing and end up hitting myself. Rubbing my eyes and drinking things are the main ones.
Sometimes when I go to move something from one hand to the other I throw it instead.

Sometimes my autopilot craps out entirely and I end up standing there while I try to figure out 1) what I was trying to do and 2) how to do it.

 

I frequently go to grab, say, the Vegemite out of the cupboard, and I get to the bench where I'm making my sandwich and I look at my hand and I'm holding a tin of tea. And like, I was looking at what I was grabbing while I was grabbing it, so it's doubly confusing. Or I go to get my phone out of my bag and I grab my purse instead and I'm just staring at, feeling very confused.

Also accidentally putting things in the wrong places, or staring the process of doing something and halfway through being like, "Wait this isn't what I wanted to do." This happens in the shower a lot.

 

One time I was talking to someone in a game. I wanted to respond to them with yes, so I thought yes with my brain, sent yes down my arms and into my fingers, made yes with my mouth while I felt my fingers writing yes, and watched in horror as yeah appeared above my character's head.

 

This happens to me a lot with words that end in either -tion or -ing. Most of the time it's tiong if the word already ends in it.

 

I have been known to do this while walking. You would think walking would give your brain enough time to kick in "oh, I was supposed to go to place" before you entirely pass Place, but no, and then you have to backtrack three blocks anyway.

Looking for phone while on phone is something I do all the time. Usually it's while playing games and I want to check the time or my phone Skype.

 

That makes me think of scenes in movies where someone starts hunting for their glasses ... while wearing their glasses. I haven't done that yet but at this point it's only a matter of time.

 

I have. More times than I want to remember. I'm looking EVERYWHERE for my glasses, panicking like hell beause I'm afraid I lost them, only to realise that they're on my nose all this time. I've looked for my phone while holding it in my hand, and my keys too. It's awful.

Also kind of related to autopilot errors... My mother is hard of hearing (50-60% in each ear) and she has something I've always liked to call the 'ARU' - automatic response unit - which means that she didn't hear the question asked but assumes it and gives an answer to that. The questions are always standard ones: 'would you like a drink?' 'I'm going walking with the dogs, are you coming?' Etc. As consciously listening takes a lot of effort and her hearing aids are shite in different contexts (crowded areas mainly), she depends on her ARU. When she goes outside her ARU functions very well as she's also very alert to everything around her, but when she's at home with us idiots around her, she switches it to 'low priority' and hilarity ensues.

'Where is [book I'm looking for]'
'I've already made tea you lazy bum!'

'Shall I walk the dogs?'
'No, I don't care now rainy it is, you need to walk the dogs!'

We tease her because of it and she always says her ARU functions perfectly but we're too damn dysfunctional for it.

 

If I could count the number of time my mom has searched the house in a panic looking for her keys while they were in her hand...

Which will never live up to the one time, due to an entirely different autopilot error, she lost them in the freezer. (She had forgotten to put them down and was putting away groceries with them in hand)