We have all been there. You’re in the middle of a presentation or a conversation and suddenly your mind goes completely blank. What was that basic word, the one that I really really should know? Your panicked reaction to this untimely brainfreeze only makes things worse, as your mind desperately scrabbles for an alternative…
While doing some work for a particularly dense post doc researcher, he opened the valve to a steam line he should not have played with since it was not capped and it shot a jet of steam into the room (the line was about 16-19 psi) which made a condensation cloud about 10 feet long. He passed his hand through the condensation near the end of the stream and said the steam in the building was too cold and couldn’t sterilize anything.
I thought he was joking but he was serious. Another coworker told me that same guy had argued with him that stainless steel was just a coating over normal steel and would rust if it had holes drilled through it. lol, he also blew up several hundred dollars of glassware by trying to grow an organism in 2 liter bottles at high temps and it produced gas and did not include a vent system. Boom.
Sometimes smart people do stupid things but sometimes they do it so often you want to call their university to see if they had made a mistake.
It is so very reassuring to read all these examples of the sudden, temporary vacuums that all of us experience sometimes. It is only as one gets older that they inspire dread of memory loss.
I am at that stage where I forget words and names when talking to people. I have a family history of Alzheimer’s so it is half-way expected I’d become that way. I’m also good at Spoonerisms and malapropisms. Poor, poor pitiful me. Along with that particular set of problems I’m also losing my hearing. I’m surprised at some of the things I hear on TV, well, think I hear. I often ask my wife, “Can they say that on TV?” She just smiles and nods her head. She’s more deaf than me. Still there’s a lot of fun in life. There’s politics and religion.
you come up with a lot of junk when you’ve got chemo brain. sometimes its not too bad, but other times, its horrible. my poor husband. he just sits and waits but sometimes if its too long of a wait or the answer is obvious, he blurts it out. as i say, my poor husband.
Forgot “Pink” called it less than red.
EVERY LANGUAGE SAYS ANANAS
Once at a work’s Christmas party. I said (in front of her husband) to one of the canteen ladies “Hello, I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on”.
They wear uniform smocks in the kitchen and she was dressed up. Fortunately it was quite common for extremely funny comments to be heard in there.
Ha! English is my husband’s 2nd language, so he’s comedy gold, at times. I remember the time he kept asking where was the dog’s belt. “Do you mean her collar,” I asked. Yes. He meant “collar”.
Well… There’s a funny joke about that.
Man naming things in English: “What should we call this,” (holding up pineapple)
His assistant: “Well, the rest of the world says, ‘ananas’.”
Man naming things in English: “Tut. Tut. It’s kind of like a pine cone. …But juicy.”
His assistant: “Sir, everyone else says, ‘ana-’.”
Man naming things in English: (proudly) “I will call it, ‘pineapple’.”
His assistant: “Sir…”
Man naming things in English: (angrily) “I said… …PINE.”
Man naming things in English: “APPLE.”
When I freeze I don’t come up with clever substitutes. Arctic Cabbage is brillant!