The Absolute Stupidest Thing I Have Ever Done

Here is a small piece of statistical fascination for you: This will be the 51st entry on my blog with the label 'embarrassing moments'. Clearly, I do stupid things all the time.

But in my life's history, which has been long and varied, this, my friends, goes down as the all-time stupidest. Twenty-seven years down the track, I am still amazed at what happened.

And, to be frank, kind of awed.

I was eighteen years old and I was living with my parents. At the time, I was driving my dad's old Toyota. It was 'champagne' colour, or so he had told me. In fact, it was more like 'vomity brown', but it drove, and I was grateful for that.

One morning, I got up and dressed, ready for uni. I ate my toast and drank my coffee and brushed my teeth and grabbed my bag and said goodbye to my parents and sister and headed out the door. I walked to my car and...

Hang on. The car wasn't there.

I had parked the car where I always parked it, directly outside of our house. There was absolutely no question that I had left it there; I had never parked it anywhere else.

But it wasn't there now.


Artist's Impression of Me Looking For My Car (In a Field, In a Long Blue Dress, About 150 Years Ago)

My brain simply did not compute the anomaly. I had left the car there, but it wasn't there now. So what on earth could that mean?

Well, clearly, I simply couldn't see the car. Obviously, my eyes had suffered some sort of malfunction, and were unable to process my vomity brown Toyota. So the only solution was to find the car by feel, which I proceeded to do in the middle of the street.

Yes, people, I stood in the road, waving my hands around in the empty spot, trying to feel my car. I kid you not. I actually did that. Imagine a woman on slightly bended legs, outstretched arms waving in front of her, like a blind person navigating their way through a room full of furniture.

And that was me.

Needless to say, I did not find my car. I did not find my car because it had been stolen (as my family explained once I walked back inside and reported that my car had become invisible). Eventually the Toyota was found in another suburb, still vomity brown and not at all translucent.

And my brain was found too, some time after. Most of it, anyway. But as I have 51 posts under the label 'Embarrassing Moments', clearly it never returned entirely.