Whoops…….I can’t believe I did that.

About 20 years ago, I am a therapeutic Counsellor, I was due to see my first client at a specialist agency dealing with incest and sexual abuse after careful and fairly intensive training in that specialty. I was really quite nervous. I had planned to leave home in plenty time, calm and well prepared. All was going well, I got into my car and drove down the drive, we have tall wooden gates that are kept locked. I got out of the car to unlock the gates only to find that I had misplaced my gate keys. I phoned my husband in a panic and asked him to get back a.s.a.p. to let me out. I phoned the agency to warn them that I might be delayed and to take care of my client until I got there. Husband arrived home about ten minutes later. We went through all my handbags and pockets etc. and keys were in a different coat pocket! I felt a complete fool.
Luckily the management at the agency were very understanding , I was in time for my client and things went well. I continued to work for that agency for many years. I later found that every counsellor is really nervous doing their first session there. To this day if there is the slightest chance of me being late for anything I phone ahead to warn whoever I am meeting but I am seldom late for anything. Often we learn the most valuable lessons from our mistakes.

A few years ago I went to a small local supermarket, shopped and when I came to pay couldn't find my purse. All the staff and some of the shoppers scoured the shop, couldn't find it. The shop took down details etc. I got back to the car and it was on the roof. Very embarrassing!

Oops I think I posted that on the wrong thread! Sorry. It was meant for the 'naughty' thread.

When my DH was at secondary school he stole the PE teacher's clothes while he was in the shower after the lesson! He dumped them in a rubbish bin and the teacher had to borrow a boiler suit from the caretaker to get home. Nobody liked that teacher. A few days later DH left school forever.

I could write a book about my faux pas. Most recent was driving home from Tesco and stopping to buy milk (which I’d forgotten in Tesco). No bag. No purse. Panic. Brain into overdrive. I realised Id left it in the trolley. 15minute dash back to Tesco. I parked on the double yellows, belted into customer services where the lovely assistant winked and produced said bag which had very kindly been handed in. She’d used my phone & worked her way through my most recent calls to try and trace me. First was to DD2 in Sydney and the 2nd to a friend 500 miles away in Scotland. ? Oh, the relief!
The week before I’d traipsed blobs of mud over a friend’s newly laid carpet. It had to be cream didn’t it ?. In mitigation, she did say not to remove my shoes.
Ive also done the forget the baby thing - more than once, and took a group of 10 of DDs friends for a birthday outing to the theatre the day after we should have been there …..,I think they were happier with the subsequent visit to McDonald’s.

I have to plead guilty to many similar exploits.

Pushed new baby to local shops in pram. Half way home I thought that my arms should be busier..... I ran all the way back to find baby happily snoozing outside the shop.

When this baby was about eight, we drove to a supermarket with its sibling, parked the car, shopped, then younger child and I began our drive home. "Mummy, shouldn't we have collected X and the shopping?" said my little one. I had asked the older child to stand guard over the heavy shopping whilst I brought the car round. Not a good mother.... My eldest began to think that I had a vendetta against her!

I have left a handbag full of passports, travel documents and money on the 'plane, only realising when queueing for Passport Control. I managed to retrace my steps (that was c 25 years ago and I would hope that security is better now!). The cleaners beamed and knew immediatey what I wanted. I was very fortunate to have honest aeroplane cleaners.

I baked a cake for Guides and loaded up the car with children, etc. On arriving three miles away, the cake was still in its tin on the car roof. I must be a reasonably smooth driver.....

I have left handbags on hotel dining room chairs all over the world (I just walk out after breakfast, forgetting the hanging bags) and never had anything stolen when collecting the bag

There are umpteen more but that's enough!

OP you are not alone!

another time we had stopped the car at lunchtime at a row of local small shops including a newsagent and a bakers, which got a lot of passing trade on a busy main road. When I came out with whatever I had bought, maybe a pint of milk, I opened the passenger door of our car and was indignant to find my husband had spread his big newspaper across the passenger seat and had an open bag of crisps on the seat too. I swished the paper back to his side as I flung myself into the seat, and as I was putting my seat belt on said " come on then lets go or we will be late" to which a total stranger said " just tell me where we are going then and I'll go as fast as I can". Yes, I had jumped into the car of a total stranger who was enjoying a quiet lunch break and his newspaper. Our car was the one behind and my husband almost died laughing when he saw what I had done.

My husband was going straight out after work with his colleagues for a night out. I had arranged to join him at 10pm to give him a lift home. When I arrived I was of course the only sober person in the crowded pub, and squeezed my way through closely packed bodies and thick smoke, peering into every corner, before spotting him sitting with his back towards me in the furthest away dimmest corner along with about 10 colleagues, most of whom I didn't know. I eventually reached him feeling quite flustered and playfully slapped him across the back of his neck loudly exclaiming "could you have sat any further away from the entrance" ..... when the person turned around and I saw it was his boss I had slapped. OMG. To be fair a few people did say that when they were both sitting down at work they did look very alike from the back, but still. My face is still burning now.

Sago

My most careless error ever was to leave my car parked opposite our house without the handbrake on.
The drive was full of builders vehicles.
It slowly rolled toward the house then gathered momentum and crashed into a stone wall that we were having built.
My husband realised what was happening and ran out.
“You remembered to lock the *** doors” he screamed as he stood and watched the moment of impact.

I had 3 builders and a furious husband staring at me with looks of absolute disbelief.

What’s your most careless act?

My husband and a builder just finished concreting a stable yard , and I ran right across it - we all looked in amazement ?

I got home from work one night after a train ride to pick up my car to drive the rest of the way. My husband greeted me with ‘where is your phone’ after checking my bag & pockets he held up my phone. Apparently I dropped it on the train & a passenger picked it up when he heard it ringing. After speaking to my husband he arranged to meet him when he got off the train. Thanks to an honest person my phone got home before me.

Too many to mention! One memorable Boxing Day, friends came to stay and brought a giant turkey with them. I put it in the oven with the timer on and we all went out for the day. On nearing home later that we day we were all looking forward to the smell of roasting bird, when I realised I had automatically flicked the main oven switch off at the wall! We had mince instead!! I was not popular.
I once also managed to stand on a rake in the garden and it hit me on the nose - just like in a comedy sketch. It hurt a lot but was also very funny.

My mum nipped out to hang some washing on the line, and the door closed behind her.

She was wearing my dads old donkey jacket, and his size nine slippers (mum wore size six) over her nighty.
She knocked next door, but they were out, and had left their own slippers in the conservatory.
Mum slipped on a pair of next doors shoes, (size 4) and decided to walk to mine (over a mile away)
She hobbled along the road for ages, with the slippers rubbing her feet, and arrived, finally, at mine.
Then realised I must be working a 12.5 hour shift.
I found her sitting on my doorstep when I arrived home at half ten that night!

Many, many years ago, my mum left me outside a shop in my pram (as you did in those days), when someone rushed in to get her. She had left the rent money under the pram mattress and I had found it and was throwing it and it was blowing ll over the street

So many funny stories. Cars and keys seem to cause the most problems. Also many of us seem to have left their baby outside a shop. I know that I did, with my first one.
My son's friends, who were fanatical fans of some performer or other. I can't remember who, once booked tickets to see them perform in New York. On arriving they found that they were a whole year early! An expensive mistake.

I walked towards a group of smartly dressed men,at my sons wedding
My son was talking to , who I thought was my husband. I squidged his backside.......it was my sons BOSS !!!

GrannyTracey Thank you for the laugh , funniest yet ?I have tears streaming down my face . Not actually laughed like this in a long long time

Yep, our son often says (only in jest) "I wasn't really wanted you know!"

Loobs

Yesterday DH and I were returning from a lovely 10 days in our campervan, in Dorset. We were in a bit of a hurry as having dinner with DD1 and when we stopped for diesel, my husband ran to the loo as he was desperate and I offered to fill the tank. Yep - I put petrol in instead of diesel. Only 8 litres but I knew it was not good!!! I had enough sense not to turn the engine on so was able to get 'a man who does' to empty the tank. The only damage - £300 and hurt pride.

I used to work at a petrol station (many, many moons ago) and we always left the diesel pump 'unarmed' in order to prevent such a happening. Doesn't seem to be done any more - not even sure it is possible with these modern multi-fuel pumps.

Back then it was easy to spot the diesel car - they all had a 'D' on the boot alongside the model name. The amount of times the alarm went off in the shop and one of my colleagues or I would look up to see a rather frustrated driver. We'd then have to try and convince them they were at the diesel pump, not the petrol pump they thought they'd pulled up at.

Sadly, or do I mean luckily, I don't seem to have many careless stories. Mind you, that could be just because I'm so forgetful these days

My recent careless acts (ie the only ones I can actually remember) involve house keys.

On the same day I managed to lose the keys to both the front and back door - and didn't find either for 3 days despite turning the house upside down. Never have I been so grateful to have 3 external doors to my house. Of course, the keys turned up exactly where I'd left them - right where they always 'live'...

A few days after finding those keys, I lost the ones to the 3rd door - several weeks later I still haven't found them even though I know they're in the house... somewhere...

Luckily, I live on my own these days so there's no one to 'remind' me of my (new) habit of losing house keys.

Happysexagenarian

1. Walked to the local shops with 6 week old son in pram, went into bakers then walked home - without pram or son! I even made a cup of tea and sat down before I realised what I'd done.

2. Fast forward a few years..... After arriving home from collecting same son from infants school there was a knock at the door and there was another mum - with my son. I had left him in the playground! she thought it was hilarious, and the following day I got lots of reminders to take the kid home with me!

Happysexagenarian - Thank you for the laugh , funniest yet ?I have tears streaming down my face . Not actually laughed like this in a long long time

Arrived on Christmas Eve to stay with my parents for the Christmas holiday to find we had left the bags with the childrens presents at home! We also left all my sons nappies and clothes behind. There was some quick last minute shopping done!

Years ago we left our teenage kids with Gran & papa . So excited to get a long weekend in our friends Spanish apartment. Only to find I had only booked one flight for me & missed my husband off . I am pmsl now just writing this but at the time I was so angry at myself for getting it wrong . No extra seats left on plane so we had to go back home ?

Many years ago, with a double buggy occupied by two fidgeting children, I went in to town to pay the mortgage with cash my self employed husband had given me, having just been paid in cash himself. For some reason I had put my purse in my shopping bag and not my handbag as I usually did. Dying for the loo, I went in and hung the shopper on the back of the toilet door,which I’d propped open with the buggy to keep an eye on it. (No modesty in those days!). On reaching the building society a few minutes later, suitably relieved, I realised my purse was not in my handbag! You’ve guessed it-I’d forgotten my shopping bag hanging on the back of the door with all the cash in it! I rushed back to the (public) toilet, my heart in my mouth! It was still there! So very, very lucky, wasn’t I?

Few years ago as I was about to go and pick up son from school,I went out to the car and closed the front door with purse and all keys left on the table, fortunately it was still early so managed to walk to the school and went to the bank who knew me and explained my predicament they allowed me withdraw money which enabled me to take a bus to my mum's and hubby had to pick us up on his way home.

I called my husband to tell him my car had been stolen as it was no longer in the car park. He then reminded me that he had taken my car for a service and I was actually driving his car - which was parked nicely where I had left it!!

When I reversed my 11 month old car hard into my twin sister’s 2 month old car - in front of both our husbands. That was an expensive day.

When my husband was young my mother-in-law took him in the pram to do some shopping and went home without him. She had left him outside the shop.