EEEEEEP! And ARRRRGH! And PHEW

[simont]

In roughly that order.

At about 3:30 this afternoon I went to the Gallery by way of Argos. Went out of front door, opened car, piled in several things I needed to drop off at the Gallery, drove to Argos, queued for half an hour buying poncy radio-synchronised alarm clock (seems slightly silly to buy one the day after the clocks go back, but it'll be one less thing to hassle me in March). On to Gallery, watched things and played games and in particular introduced hilarityallen to Mao which was fun, finally gave Owen a lift home and then came back here.

To find the one vital thing I'd forgotten to do when I left: shut the front door! It was gapingly wide open and had been so since 3:30. Evidently the number of things I'd been carrying when I walked through it had overfilled my poor little mind and shutting the door dropped out of the other side.

Cue cold sweats and frantic running around to see if anything was missing, to say nothing of a bit of healthy caution in case any putative burglars were still on the premises. But no; apparently nobody at all (hostile or friendly) had so much as noticed, and nothing seems to be missing.

Excuse me while I wibble hysterically for a while…

Comments

[angua.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell!

I thought I was bad when I thought I had burnt the house down the other day :)

*hugs*

[aellia.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of the people who live in Malta..all of them seem to got out and leave their doors open!
At the market there are prominent signs
*Thieves will be reported to the parish priest*

Hysterical wibbles perfectly understandable in this country!

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Remember some years ago seeing an empty car in Malta with an English 'Car crime - together we'll crack it' sticker in the rear windscreen, and both the side windows wound down and the doors unlocked.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Yipe! Glad to hear nothing bad came of it.

[simonb.livejournal.com]

Eeek not good. I had something like that almost happen to me a couple of years ago, although with the door to our garage-type-thing where I'd turned the lock before the door was full closed so mentally I had locked it (the key had turned after all), but in reality I hadn't. I caught this in my OCD checking, which actually made the checking worse.

These days I have to visualise a triangle where each side is illuminated when I check that I have my keys, that the back door is locked and that the garage door is locked. When the triangle is fully lit I, for want of a better word, force it into my memory so that I don't get half way to work to only have to turn around and come home to check that yes, I really did locks the doors.

[simont]

*nods* When I put the bolt on the door before going to bed at night I have to deliberately impress it into my memory that I've done so, otherwise I get up an hour or two later to make sure.

I might now have to institute a similar policy when I leave the house...

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Hmm, wonders if there's any way <lj user="wechsler" could learn this technique, as he has that OCD habit too - I've seen him check the same door four times in a row before he's satisfied that it's locked.

[simonb.livejournal.com]

Sounds familiar - I used to check the doors and the fact that I had my keys a similar number of times before I started to use this visualisation technique.

It works quite well as there are three things to check so a triangle - an easy to remember object - works quite well. At night when I check the door to the garage before locking the house up I have to use a different visualisation technique since there are only two things to check, the back door and garage door. There I split the visualisation, using a method of check door, then do a specific hand/body motion (a specific martial arts technique) which allows me to imprint the memory of checking the door into my memory. I use a different technique for the back door itself.

Something else about the triangle method I use; once all three sides are lit the entire triangle flashes and it is that which appears to stick in my memory - a flashing purple triangle :)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

it is that which appears to stick in my memory - a flashing purple triangle :)

Like a great big bi-friendly sign? *grin*

[velvetfox.livejournal.com]

I came back from nursery a few days back to find my keys in the front door displayed for all the world, but still locked!

[simont]

I once got given post for the same house number in the next street (the streets have similar names), and walked round in person to drop it off. When I got there I saw a set of keys sticking out of the outside door lock, so I rang the doorbell and said "er, did you know ...". The pretty young woman who answered the door spent so long being grateful to me for pointing out the keys that I almost forgot to hand over the post :-)