‘What is the funniest thing you’ve done whilst on autopilot?’ – 23 very silly actions from people whose brains weren’t in gear

There are some activities in life where it’s good for our minds to wonder: who wants to be fully cognisant of cleaning the oven or changing nappies, after all? But sometimes doing things without really thinking about them can lead to problems which wouldn’t have happened if we’d just paid a little bit more attention.

Over on the AskUK subreddit, user onmylunchbreak_ posted this:

What is the strangest or funniest thing you’ve done whilst on autopilot? Very curious to know. For me I placed my phone carefully on the bedside table and then threw my bowl of cereal onto the bed.

And people who had done something equally as ridiculous were queueing up to share their tales of incredible absentmindedness.

1.

‘Driving the 353 bus from Croydon to Orpington in the early 90s listening to footy on the radio when I realised I had taken quite a shortcut and missed half the route.’
–HMSWarspite03

2.

‘Oooh, I did this with a glass of water. I always take a glass of water to bed, but one night, probably just tired, I threw it casually onto the bed. I then stood there for a solid five seconds just looking at it. The cat was watching from the door, like ‘Bitch, that was ALL you’.’
–Betty2445

3.

‘Not me, but my brother. It was winter so short days, long nights. My brother came hone from school, went for a nap. For some reason he fell asleep in school uniform. He woke up around 9pm, looked at the alarm clock, panicked and almost ran out of the house.

I stopped him. I was like ‘Wtf, where are you going?’. He was like ‘I’m going to be late for school.’ It was a few months after my nana died, and I was quite depressed. This made me laugh for the first time in a while. I ended up telling him that it was 9pm and he missed dinner. I left him some and heated it up.’
–Thick_Suggestion_

4.

‘I made a batch of brownies for my work colleagues then arrived at work carrying the cheese box.’
–Particular_Store8743

5.

‘I had to go somewhere for work. I’d ridden my motorbike there and when I went into the changing room I saw another guy who looked kind of like me – similar age, hair colour, and wearing the same motorbike jacket as me.

I was on autopilot thinking about something else but when I saw him, I thought, ‘Oh I’m already here’ then turned around and walked out of the room to go home. Took me a couple of seconds to realise how mental that thought was.’
–hhfugrr3

6.

‘Put my car key in the fridge and Babybels on the console table.’
–DryJackfruit6610

7.

‘Put washing up liquid all over the cooked pasta I was draining.’
–sharkkallis

8.

‘It was terrifying at the time, but kinda funny looking back now. I put my son in the bread drawer (and shut it) and then went on bouncing the loaf of bread I was holding on my shoulder.

I was VERY sleep deprived.’
–ImThatBitchNoodles

9.

‘I got into the shower after taking off my clothes but leaving on my underwear.’
–Westsidepipeway

10.

‘Was soaking in the bath for a while before I realised I was still wearing my bra.’
–BabyAlibi

11.

‘Getting ready to go to work, laid out the clothes for the day on the bed, so they’d be ready for when I got out of the shower. Had a shower, then something short-circuited in my brain and I went into ‘I’ve just got home from work, it’s time to go for a run’ mode. I put the clean clothes in the dirty laundry basket, put on my running gear and left the house.

Fortunately, I only got a few steps out of the front door before I realised that the sun was in the wrong place for 6:30 pm.’
–Alternative-Emu2000

12.

‘Drove to work, when I got there remembered I hadn’t worked there for 18 months and had to then drive to my current job.’
–urban_shoe_myth