Recently I’ve been noticing an amusing category of daily life cock-up which I’d like to christen Abstraction errors. The definition is that they show you’ve abstracted a situation or action but you’ve then applied your abstraction wrongly. Perhaps nobody else is prone to this – but if you are, you could add your examples:
Here are the examples I’ve noticed so far:
1. Trying to shave my armpits instead of putting deoderant (take a stick-like object from the shelf in the bathroom and wiggle it about under your arms).
2. Trying to put my coffee key into my motorbike ignition (to get what you want, take coffee key and put in somewhere).
3. Trying to press ctrl Z when I’ve made a real life mistake.
4. Thinking about phoning a lost object which is not my mobile phone.
5. Going to the cinema, sitting down and reaching for my seatbelt.