"Stole" someone's bag at second Headway meeting! - Headway

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"Stole" someone's bag at second Headway meeting!

charlieab profile image
18 Replies

So I went to my second Headway meeting. As with the first one, folk were friendly and welcoming and I left feeling that my brain was in better shape than I had thought. I'd joined in conversations, made a few jokes (a few of which may have been funny), and was in the winning team for the quizz.

At least I thought my brain was in better shape until going down the M4 I opend the carrier bag that I had taken into the group and found that my half eaten sandwich had gone. I couldnt believe that someone would steal a half eaten sandwich or indeed anything at a Headway meeting. And so I delved (literally and mentally) further and found that I now had two free diaries that they had given out at the group and (the clincher) there was an alien glasses case. Slowly it dawned on me that I had taken someone else's carreir bag. To be fair to my brain the bag had been left on my chair and who remembers what their carrier bag looks like.

And so I pictured the scene back at the hall. The police having been called, flashing lights outside, and inside witness statements being assiduously noted down. I wondered whether they let people with tinnitus have a CD of crashing waves or heavy rain in their cell over night.

Fortunately, when I got back to the hall everyone was very understanding. I suspect that Im not the fisrt one to have made this misatke! And was it brain injury or could it have happend to me before all this mini-strokes business began. Indeed, I remember in the final week before my final uni exams (a long time ago now) that I left nearly all my revision notes in a carrier bag in a restuarant and never saw them again.

People forget I guess. Anyways, I will be going back next year and will try and not leave with anybody ele's possessions.

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charlieab profile image
charlieab
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18 Replies
cat3 profile image
cat3

Ha ha, Charlie the plastic bag snatcher.........................

I loved the bit about being allowed a tinnitus masking CD in your prison cell ! 😳 Nice having a bedtime story, especially one which makes me smile. 😃xx

charlieab profile image
charlieab in reply to cat3

Thanks Cat. Hope you doing well.

cat3 profile image
cat3 in reply to charlieab

😖 x

CH56Twin profile image
CH56Twin

Gosh that made me smile - thank you. Hope all ok now. Clare x

charlieab profile image
charlieab in reply to CH56Twin

Thanks Clare. Yes, I now have my own bag back and the rogue bag should be back with its original owner. Though I decided to throw the sandwich out.

Hope you doing ok.

R

Gaia_rising profile image
Gaia_rising

Bless your heart, charlieab mishaps like that are the reason I generally resemble a walking jumble-sale. When I worked, my keys and walkie-talkie were clipped to my trousers, and my bag worn cross-body, so I didn't have to 'think' about holding it. (The bag trick mis-fired during an incident of physical intervention with a disruptive student, it slipped off my shoulder, and, because I needed to continue 'guiding' the girl to a safe place, I calmly stepped out of the tripping-hazard bag-strap, leaving my very new male manager to gingerly carry my 'handbag' down the playground...)

I'm chuckling that you put "stole" in quote-marks, having had no intent to permanently deprive the owner of their collected freebies and such.

I'm not quite at the 'mittens on a string inside my coat sleeves' stage, and I am worryingly obsessive about things being in the 'correct' pockets (Haven't worn a dress or skirt in years, why do clothes designers put pockets in baby-clothes, but not in most skirts/dresses?) I'm a pocket-tapper, always was. My house-key goes in 'that' pocket, my wallet in 'that' pocket, and I make sure I have a specified pocket for my mobile phone, whatever I'm wearing.

I'll carry on being a pack-horse, because anything that's not physically strapped to me, or in a specific pocket tends to be abandoned when my mind becomes slippy, there's been a tea-spoon in the airing cupboard for as long as I can remember, and the TV remote quite often goes on little holidays around the house...

charlieab profile image
charlieab in reply to Gaia_rising

Hi Gaia_rising

Thanks, your post made me chuckle a good few times.

Your job sounds like it was challenging and rewarding. I was once engaded to a teacher and she loved her job but often seemed quite frazzled.

I use to have the check routine but it doesnt seem work. I went to get an extra front door key cut a few days ago as was down to one key. Having hidden the spare one in some where so safe that even I couldnt find it. And so I left the one remaining key with the key cutting desk at Morrison's and went off to queu for 20 minutes at the cafe for what was (by the time I got to pay) a cup of cold chocolate. And then I headed back to the key cutting place, rummaged in my pocket to get the money out to pay, and there found (apparently having appearde from nowhere) another copy of the key. Im not sure how I could have been carrying two keys around and thinking I only had one. maybe each time I came aacross a key I asuemd that it was the same one and they were never together in the same pocket at the same time.

Like you suggest its amazing where things turn up and how things (ofte large things like chairs) disappear. Ive done soem memory tests on line and my memory seems OK there. Its just in the realm world that it lets me down.

Hope you doing OK today.

best wishes

R

Gaia_rising profile image
Gaia_rising in reply to charlieab

Funnily enough, my ex was the one who usually 'lost' keys. He moved out the day after my last surgery, and, within a week, he'd lost the keys to his new flat, AND the keys to this house... any wonder I couldn't have him living here with my 'new, improved' brain?

Hey-ho, we keep on trying, don't we? (Yes, my job was exceptionally challenging, I loved it, and now I'm spending hours on 'Universal JobMatch' every day, trying to make my weird skills transferable.)

Mind how you go, inadvertent bag-thief.

RogerCMerriman profile image
RogerCMerriman in reply to Gaia_rising

My wife looses or rather can’t find for a while objects since she puts them in dumb places, normally her phone drives me potty since I can’t work like that, i need to be ordered or it makes me anxious!

RogerCMerriman profile image
RogerCMerriman in reply to Gaia_rising

Not quite a walking jumble sale, though I do now generally take a man bag, so I have somewhere safe to put keys, and I tend to take my iPad which helps me remember things.

Woman’s clothes in general tends not to have useful pockets for some reason, it’s not as if women don’t carrry stuff!

I regularly have to check I’ve locked the house/Car since I can’t remember etc.

Gaia_rising profile image
Gaia_rising in reply to RogerCMerriman

Mine's a man-bag, too, RogerCMerriman I'm not the most feminine of creatures, and, faced with the choice of a tiny, dainty 'handbag' that wouldn't contain my wallet and 'stuff', and would occupy my hand, or one of those massive carpet-bags that old ladies have, I've been using a 'camera bag' for years. (Ooh, momentary rage at the ex in-laws, there, and their tendency to have nine billion bags with handles on holiday... I'm a practical animal, and couldn't stand all the stopping to put bags down to free up hands to open gates, or take photos.)

I've decided that my phone is my iCarer, appointments, reminders and such are in there, and, on really bad days, I photograph what I've eaten. That's not in a flouncy show-off Instagram way, it's to remind me what I've eaten and when, I can identify 'bad patches' by my camera-roll having multiple meal pictures in a row.

Female clothing is a nightmare for pockets. (It's a nightmare in general for me, I'm 5ft 9in and skinny, trousers from the 'female' section tend to have 'spare' cloth around the hips.) I can't 'do' clutch-bags, because only one of my hands works properly, and because I'd likely put it down somewhere, and wander off. I'm not carting around the entire cosmetics counter from Boots like some women do, but I do need somewhere for phone, keys, wallet etc.

'Checking' I've locked the door is easier at this house, I put the key in the back pocket of my jeans/trousers after I've locked the door, the old house had one of those thumb-latch things on it, sometimes the door 'locked itself', whether you had your key or not, I eventually ended up burying a spare key in the garden, after locking myself out... I don't drive, so locking the car isn't an issue. The ex gave me the spare key to his car, but didn't give me a spare alarm-fob, there are only so many times you want to stand with a full trolley in a supermarket car-park, with an alarm blaring...

iforget profile image
iforget

I think we have all had one of those whoops picked up the wrong bag moments at some point... My "best" (worst) one was when I was in hospital many years ago and was sitting by another patients bedside chatting. Nurses told me to get back to bed and I picked up the catheter bag in its little stand and set off ...thankfully at a very slow pace because I picked up the wrong bag and was making off with my companions catheter bag while mine dragged long the floor behind me. Obviously I did not get far and we both realised my eye-watering mistake pretty quickly...Needless to say that until the bag was removed, I became obsessive about checking before setting off anywhere....and never did that again.

charlieab profile image
charlieab in reply to iforget

Blimy. That genuinely made me laugh more than anything has for a very long while. Brilliant. Did the other patient ask if you were "taking the piss"? :)

Wittycjt profile image
Wittycjt in reply to iforget

Ha ha. It’s good to laugh! Be well, Cindy

Wittycjt profile image
Wittycjt

You gave me quite the chuckle, this is something I would do but I would have also imagined them cuffing and taking me to jail before I had returned. Thanks for the laugh, I hope I haven’t offended you. Cindy

charlieab profile image
charlieab in reply to Wittycjt

Thanks Cindy. You're welcome. Hope you're doing OK.

Wittycjt profile image
Wittycjt

I’m well, thanks, how about you now?

charlieab profile image
charlieab in reply to Wittycjt

Not so bad thanks. :)

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