Forgetting Simple Things

Sometimes we are certainly absent minded. I know we've all done it. For me, it's a really frustrating thing and I certainly hope it's not a sign of early onset dementia or alzheimers or some shit hahaha.

I don't know why it's happened but I've forgotten to shut off the burner on the stove with a pot of water on it, intending to make tea but get distracted with something, usually about work, and end up burning the pan and causing all kinds of smoke and shit in the house. It's thankfully not happened many times but twice is enough, and then you freak out about it.

We recently went on a trip to a place about an hour away and we were rushing in the morning, trying to get everything ready so we could get out the door and on our way. I remember feeling a little chill in the house so I turned the oven on, nothing was in it but I wanted the heat without turning the actual heat on. I was also boiling some water for coffee and tea, which would as well warm up the place a little bit. These were all great things at the time, but damn did they haunt me the rest of the day!

I remember specifically shutting off the water because I was hopping in the shower and didn't want to burn the pan. I forgot if I turned off the oven (I did turn it off) and when I got out of the shower, my wife and son were ready to go. I got dressed and grabbed our stuff and we were out the door. I have burned things in the past so I am usually incredibly over sensitive about doing it again so I double and triple check that so I don't fuck up and ruin everything in our lives. This day though, I didn't get my chance to double and triple check it! I was confident that I did shut it off, but because I didn't go through my double and triple check process, I was doubting myself HARD.

I didn't think of it until we were already on the road, and I was embarrassed to tell my wife that I wasn't completely confident I turned it all off - I knew that the pot with the water was off so at least the pot wasn't going to catch on fire but if the oven was on, it does get pretty warm and would it evaporate all the water in the pot and end up causing a fire that way? So many scenarios, but all of them stressed me the fuck out because if I failed at that, I ruined all these things.

There was a lot of stress going on in my mind that day which really sucked because I was having fun, but you have that nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach what if... and you get the fun sucked right out of you. It was brutal! Thankfully we have good neighbors and I was constantly checking my phone to see if one of them texted me to let me know that they heard the fire alarm going off in our unit, or smelled crazy smoke, or the building sprinklers went off and we were liable for crazy amounts of damages. The list goes on for scenarios lol.

We got home and I did indeed turn everything off but fucking shit, was that one of THE most stressful things I've dealt with in a long time, more than work. The thought of letting my wife and son down for something so stupid was eating away at me like an aggressive cancer. I did determine though that if there is ANY question on something like that, I am nipping it in the bud as quickly as possible and running back in the house to "grab something" and triple checking the fucking stove. If I didn't despise wifi connected devices so much and the spying that they do on you - I would get a wifi stove in order to be able to turn the damn thing off remotely. But if I can turn it off, that also means that someone can turn it on and that thought goes out the window lol.

Have you ever encountered something like this, where you forgot something simple but it ruined your day? Let me know in the comments!