Funniest ADD Moment — What's yours?

[Anonymous]

Another time, another family vacation (think national lampoon) road trip down to Florida. We stopped somewhere for fast food and drinks and were on the road. I was for some reason, obsessed with trying to look down the straw, into the cup I was drinking from, to see if I could tell how much liquid was left in the cup. Weird, huh. So I was starting directly down the straw, very closely, when the car went over a big bump and I stabbed my left eyeball with a freaking straw. I was hurt, my family laughed, it was a good time.

Is this supposed to be “funniest” ADD moments or “most traumatic”? Heheh.

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[Anonymous]

I recently purchased a large order at Arby’s. It was boring waiting, so I busied myself in the drive through with music and texting. After receiving my food, and sauces, I asked the worker for my drinks. She was very polite, but by the second time she told me she had already given me my drinks I started to get irritated, and told her she was free to look in my car, and that I did not have them. She left to get my soda’s and I looked in the back floorboard… there was the cardboard drink holder with five drinks… I was so…. embarrassed.

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[Anonymous]

I was cleaning my ear with a q-tip and got side tracked. So about an hour later went downstairs and got some very strange looks from my husband and kids. When I looked in the mirror I realized I still had the q-tip sticking out of my ear.

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[Orion]

Yesterday. I just discovered that I’ve been wearing unmatched tennis shoes for the last two weeks! I realized it when I was cleaning mud off the bottom tread and they were not the same. ARRRGHH.

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[Anonymous]

Everyone spending time on this page seeks solace from a fellow “goof” (the name I give myself quite often inside my head while recapping the day’s events) if they are like me have no less than hundreds upon hundreds of stories that range from terrifyingly shameful to horribly stupid sprinkled amongst a few that are downright hysterical. Thank God that, given enough time, all my stories do mature into the last category…So, there I am at the Psych’s office trying to get a name for this problem I have with paying attention for any length of time. A minute or so goes by and the Dr. is just sitting there in his chair patiently waiting on me to figure out the answer and then say something to him. I realize I have just done it yet again (forget where I was in a conversation). After some thought, I finally give him my very best dumb look–you know–to earn some pity from the guy. Then I had to ask, so I did. I shamefully asked him if he would repeat the question…quickly adding that somehow I simply forgot what he asked. To my incredible surprise, I could truly see sincere pity overcome this man–I saw it in his eyes. I was so grateful for his show of humanity until I heard his next words…”Danny, I haven’t said a word to you in over five minutes.”

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[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

…So, there I am at the Psych’s office trying to get a name for this problem I have with paying attention for any length of time. A minute or so goes by in the meeting and I realize the the Dr. is just sitting there in his chair patiently waiting on me to gather my thoughts and give him an answer. I immediately begin to refocus on the task at hand only to realize that I have just done it yet again–I have forgotten where I was as a principal participant in a conversation I was having with someone else. After a failed recall, I finally give him my best dumb look–you know–to earn some pity from the guy. Then I had to ask…so I did. With shame in my voice I asked him if he could repeat the question…quickly adding that somehow like so often I simply forgot what his question was. To my incredible surprise, I could literally see pity overcome this man’s face–I saw it in his eyes like I have never seen it before. I was so, so grateful for his sincere show of humanity for me until I heard his next words…”Danny, I haven’t said a word to you in over five minutes.”

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[Anonymous]

I’d have to say that until now, nothing that has happened to me due to ADD has ever been funny. Not to me anyway. Probably due to the fact that I also have suffered from Asperger syndrome and ADD both, all of my life, but until now have never understood the implications of having both at once.

Now that I know about both, and understand both, the sense of relief and awareness I have, that I never had before, seems to be causing a far more light-hearted attitude toward myself and my life than i have ever experienced before. I’m seeing a lot more humor in certain things than I ever have before.

Though none of anything that I’ve ever personally experienced in the past was funny while it was happening, I think now I’ll be laughing at more things that actually happen to me, be it directly due to my “quirks” or how I tend to react to things. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to see some humor in things that have happened in the past too. Right now though, I’d have to say it’s a bit too soon for that.

For now, I’m happy to get a chuckle or two out of what’s occurring now, but even that is still not as easy as I’d like it to be.

The most laughs I get so far are from vicarious humor seen through others experiences, as in the videos posted by Rick Green and Patrick Mckenna on the web. I can certainly at least identify and laugh with them, but I still find it hard to see my own experiences as funny. Perhaps time will change that. This understanding is just too new to me I think…

I’m still at the stage where thinking about my own experiences produces more of an, “AAAAAAAUUUUUUURRRRRRGH!!!!!!”

For now, it’s only funny when it’s happening to somebody else.

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[Anonymous]

I went into editing as a career because I needed heavy deadline stress before I could get anything done!

Once, after spending a lot of time preparing a short bio to be posted in a directory of freelance editors, I was asked if I wanted to proofread the result myself. Of course I did! After all, nobody would be as careful as moi.

When I got the proof, I found that someone had typeset a 3 where it should have been an e. I marked the error and sent the proof back immediately, aghast at such a blatant error.

When the directory was published, I saw that there were three other, less obvious typos that (to me) had been completely overshadowed by the blatant one. There it was for all to see: evidence that I couldn’t even find typos in my own bio!

I might as well have spent the (hefty) publishing fee getting a tattoo saying “Me edit real good, aren’t I”.

Talk about “not funny at the time” — !

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[Anonymous]

Oh dear!

I was at the Toronto Exhibition in the food building and decided I’d like an ice cream cone. There were a few people standing in line…it meandered a bit, so I stood where i thought the last person was. A few of them turned to look at me and I, in a friendly way, acknowledged them and continued to wait…and daydream…

The line wasn’t moving at all and when I finally took notice of my surroundings, it turned out that this was a group of people just standing around talking near the Baskin-Robbins booth and were not in line!

They must have thought I was nuts just walking up to them and standing there smiling when they looked at me!

Even better, my friends saw what was happening, and were laughing their heads off watching me not clue in!

They were taking bets to see how long it would take for me to figure it out…

Nice friends!

LOL!

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[Anonymous]

an employee at the petstore where i volunteer commented recently on how devoted i seemed to be to my voluntary work compared to all the other volunteers- i always stayed a good 4 or 5 hours looking after the adoptable shelter cats needs, when the rest of the volunteers seemed to be in and out of the place in just an hour or 2.

smiling, i explained that i didn’t think it was so much that i cared more or anything like that, but just that it took me about six times as long as them to get everything done, cos i was incredibly disorganised, easly distracted, wickedly ADD and would go from this job to another one, lose track of where i was, do a few circles, start something, leave it midway through and get sidetracked by something else,etc- all the while while explaining this i was gesturing and mimicing what i did, to elaborate (i’m one of those people who talks with their whole body and waves their arms a lot).

halfway through my elaborative roleplaying armwaving demonstration of distractability while scooping catlitter and petting kittens, she nodded, grinned, and then suddenly raised her hand excitedly, pointed to the right of me, and exclaimed loudly “oooh look! a kitty!” – at which point i rapidly turned to face the cat enclosures- thinking someone had escaped. after i’d done a quick cat-headcount, stared confusedly at them for a minute, and scratched my head, i did a double take… and turned back somewhat bewilderedly to see her bursting out with friendly laughter and wiping the tears from her eyes, before giving me a big hug and agreeing that she could see what i meant.

it turns out that she wasn’t trying to show me a kitty at all, just empathising and joining in with the whole gesturing explanation thing by interjecting with a classic catchprase example (that it seems i was unfamiliar with) of the way ADD people get thrown completely off track randomly by interesting things in their peripheral vision. like um… kitties.

way to both perpetuate a stereotype and manage to look like a total muppet, all in one easy move, jen.

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[turbo]

Miguel- with all the threads here lately talking about memory issues I was worried your story would go in the direction of “I forgot I was straight. When I remembered – BOY was it an akward scene”. lol.

Don’t really have a story to share myself, but I’ve smiled a lot while reading all of yours

It’s great when people can relate.

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[Anonymous]

Yesterday when I went to my doctor to see about trying concerta (just diagnosed 2 months ago) I told her that I thought the resident that I had seen 4 weeks ago (when I asked to switch from welbutrin to ritilin) seemed a little awkward. First I will tell you that I am a physical therapist in the hospital and I work frequently with my doctor there (small town). I had never met the resident doctor. My doctor had told the resident before I had come in for my visit (as she new why I was coming in) that she was going to try to stick to the newer drugs and stay away from ritilin. So when I asked for ritilin, the resident questioned the doctor if I might be a drug dealer… my doctor just laughed and told her to go ahead and try the ritilin with me if I was requesting to try it… I got a good laugh out of that!

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[Anonymous]

Reading all the posts here (and in other forums) is like watching a movie of my life. I have not yet been formally diagnosed with ADD but even after years of my wife telling me I had it (lots of denial on my part) it finally hit me after watching the show on PBS and then shortly thereafter finding my “lost” keys after three weeks of being sure that they were thrown out with the trash (they were on the same shelf I put them on three weeks prior). Being in law enforcement you are forced to find humor where others do not or else you go insane. While it wasnt funny at the time, and quite embarrassing, several years ago I responded to a traffic crash in the middle of a busy intersection that was backing up with traffic. Once we got the cars involved out of the intersection and it was time to open up all the lanes I went back to my patrol car only to realize that I locked my keys in the car with the car running. I had to wait for someone to go back to the office and get a spare key for me to unlock the car door. You would think that I would have learned from something like that but it was not the last time I locked my keys in the patrol car at the wrong times……..

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[Anonymous]

i’ve been really good with not losing my keys, cos i’m obsessive about putting them straight back into my bag, and i daren’t let the bag out of my sight. thank goodness.

the one time i did lose my keys, it drove me completely nuts- i last had them just before getting home from the 18 hour drive home, after a long weekend away one spring, and then they vanished without a trace- i tore the house apart (and my hair out!) looking for them for months and months- in my bag, in my pockets, in all the piles of mess and boxes of junk in our apartment, every drawer i could think of, all that weird crap that collects in the car glovebox, i backtracked to a gas station and grocery store we’d stopped in, etc- looked everywhere.

finally as fall crept in i gave up on the futile quest for the invisable keys, and got a new (wickedly expensive) car key cut and beepy alarm-pressing thing bought and programmed, plus complete set of new housekeys cut, a snazzy high vis keyring, etc (after relying on my partners spares the whole time) put them on the keyring, and then low and behold, the next morning i looked out of the window, decided the cold weather was coming, put on my winter coat….

…… and my frigging lost keys hit me very hard and very loudly on the head as i put up my hood.

…. i must have put my coat over my arm as i got out of the car, chucked the keys in my hood to carry my bags, and managed to put my coat away in the closet without them falling out of it. they sat inches from the front door for a good 6 months, just out of sight.

arrrrrrrgh!

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[Author]

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