December 10, 2013

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.

36 comments:

  1. I almost snorted coke-zero out my nose reading this Kerri! :)


    My most embarrassing moment was probably something that happened to me when I was making a presentation to the heads of ASIO, the Armed Forces, Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the NSW Police Commissioner... but I'm going to claim it as an official State Secret and never speak of it until 50 years have passed...

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  2. I used to have a dark blue Hyundai Excel. One day, I walked out of the supermarket, shopping bags in hand and rather pleased that I'd bought myself some healthy food (instead of just popcorn and wine) and proceeded to my car to head home. I unlocked the door & tilted the drivers seat forward to put my bags in the back, noting how I hadn't realised just how little leg room there was in the back of these things. I proceeded to jump in and put my keys in the ignition, only to be incredibly confused as to why, all of a sudden, I couldn't reach the pedals. As I leant forward to move the seat, I happened to notice a sheepskin seat cover on the passenger seat - something my car most definitely did not have. It was then I realised I WAS IN THE WRONG CAR! By some weird chance, my keys had unlocked a different car that was the same make and model and, despite my observations, it took me a good 30 seconds to realise it was not my car!! I hightailed it out of there and found my own car, terrified the whole time someone was going to notice.....

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  3. 1 - Brilliant!


    2 - How is that even possible? Makes you wonder just how secure electronic locking really is...

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  4. Boat, what boat? LOL You are a crack up miss!

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  5. And just in case you don't get the insurance ad down there ... a wife is walking around with a shirt over her head with her arms outstretched saying "boat, what boat?" to imitate her husband not being able to see a boat before he hit it. Probably you need to be there ...

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  6. Well, this reader of yours thinks that these posts are like a community service. They help us all feel a little bit better :)


    Were you smoking university cigarettes along with your university education, by any chance? But at the very least, your deductions of what was in front of you were awfully imaginative. So imaginative in fact that I almost find myself feeling a bit jealous and my own personal "embarrassing moments" to be somewhat banal. Think I'm gonna have to rectify that. Thankfully menopause is approaching so there's a few extra opportunities :)

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  7. I fell off a horse when I was in my teens. It is a hilarious story now, not so much at the time. There was an electric fence and I told the group I was riding on that it wouldn't be switched on so close to the road so we were right to wait for the rest of the people to catch up. No sooner had I gotten my sentence out when all of a sudden my horse's ears hit the fence, he reared up, I landed on my backside. So I got up, feeling very sore and sorry for myself and started crying and yelling that I'd broken my back and wouldn't be able to walk again. While walking towards home. My companions tried to be sympathetic but couldn't help but point out I was actually still walking, hahaha.

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  8. Oh god what a goose you are!

    For me, there was the time I jumped in the backseat of my mum's blue Commodore when she picked me up from the bus stop only to have a strange woman turn around and ask me what the hell I was doing - I'd jumped in the wrong car.

    Or the (drunken) time I forgot my keys and my husband wouldn't answer the intercom so I called a friend to take me to their house, bitching about my husband the whole trip... eventually realising a) my husband wasn't ignoring me, he just wasn't home and b) I had my keys the whole time.



    I do have a couple more but they'll go with me to the grave!!!

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  9. Catherine RodieBlaggDecember 10, 2013 at 4:59 PM

    My mum once phoned the police and reported that her car had been stolen. Later they called her to say they had found it... in the next street. She had just forgotten where she left it.

    Looking for an invisible car is brilliant xx

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  10. HA! Well, you could have become paralysed ANY MOMENT....

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  11. Tragically, I wasn't smoking anything. That was me stone cold sober!

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  12. Oh that's FANTASTIC. Love love LOVE it!

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  13. lol


    I'm not making that up... it really happened...!!

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  14. Well, at least you didn't LOCK your mum's car, while it was running (and therefore the keys in the ignition and fully out of reach), with the car in drive, and the only thing stopping it smashing into the car in front was the handbrake. Oh the embarrassment having to sit next to it until the RACV arrived, the fear that the engine would overheat and the car would be stuffed as a result (and knowing I was in for a major lecture when I got home) and the mounting anger as everyone passing by in the busy shopping strip felt compelled to ask 'do you know your car is still on?' (And of course, no seats, so sitting on the kerbside, hardly in a position of power! Thankfully, I don't think you can do this in newer cars - and no longer drive an automatic)

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  15. This reminds me of trying to wrangle a two year old into his family's non-descript silver small car, parked on the street early one morning. After much protestations, I asked him why he wouldn't come to the car, to which he replied:,"that's not our car, that's our car'; pointing two cars up! Fair enough, he wins!

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  16. Classic post-baby moment tearfully looking for car in multi-story car park, obviously car was stolen. Until I realized (with the help of the security guard) that I was looking on Level 2 and not Level 3 where the car was safely parked. Oh, and then I swiped the pole while backing out. All round epic fail. Blame it on 6 week old bubba and baby brain.


    I'm sure I was doing the "feeling for invisible car" action too. Was 18 years ago so don't remember :)

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  17. Kathy www.yinyangmother.comDecember 11, 2013 at 8:48 AM

    I had a vomity brown (I called it baby poo orange) ford escort which didn't get stolen but my hand-me-down Holden Kingswood did. I've done the trick where I've parked in a different car park then wandered around aimlessly in my usual car park.

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  18. My husband did that very same thing and there was a lady sitting in the passenger seat who wasn't me. LOL.

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  19. I told Kerri the awful details in a private message - she has been sworn to secrecy... it's too awful for public consumption... :(

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  20. It wasn't electronic locking!! My key actually fit and unlocked the door!

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  21. Oh another moment you will appreciate - walking along the main street of my hometown one busy day, I thought I saw my mums car. I wasn't quite sure, so I was trying to see the number plate. I was bent over, moving forward to get a good look and walked head first straight into a parking meter and almost knocked myself unconscious....!!

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  22. Darn. Not sure I'll be around in 50 years, but if I get to 100, I'll be expecting full disclosure!

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  23. I recall looking for my car in the Westfield car park - while i was SITTING IN MY CAR.

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  24. HAHAHA, so glad I clicked on this one! It's a sympathy laugh - I do stuff like that all the time. Okay, not quite like THAT. But not too far off. I wrote a whole blog post of ridiculous things I did after the birth of my second bub: looking for my heated Weet Bix in the fridge when the microwave beeped; showered with my glasses on; boiled water, then drained it before adding the pasta to cook; put the kettle in the fridge and the milk on the kettle heating unit; and, my favourite, spent a good 40 seconds trying to remove my invisible glasses from my face before deciding they probably weren't there. Invisibility. I hear ya.

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