Laughing Out Loud

You know you're ADD when ...
Fall 96

...you publish an online newsletter and the July issue comes out August 7th (and you actually think, "close!") MGHCoach

...you take your child out for ice cream, only to find out when you arrive at Dairy Queen that it's been closed for two months

...and you drive past it every day on the way home from work!!! ADHD in MI

... you have a large collection of ties bought at hotel gift shops because you keep forgetting to pack ties for business trips. I even have one of those cowboy-type string ties with a silver clasp. It was the only tie available at the hotel gift shop in Irvington, Texas.

Then, there was the time I had to buy shoes before going to a business meeting in San Francisco. I'd packed my suit and tie that time, but forgot to bring any shoes other than the white athletic shoes I wore on the plane. JimAMS you send some materials to a client and put extra stamps on just to make sure (and to avoid the post office line). 8 of those new ones with no numbers on them. One week later one packet comes back with postage due so you put on a bunch more stamps and send it out again. Meanwhile, another client calls to tell you that theirs arrived postage due. Then the first one comes back yet again.

How was I supposed to know that the letter stamps have flags on them and the ones you put on *with* the old 29 cent stamps have birds? What happened to the number of cents? And how much does it cost to mail these days? Whoever thought up this new system has an ADD spouse that he really wants to get back at!!!!! Boy did I feel dumb!!!! Oops. Madelyn I was driving my then fiance's (now exhusband's) car, with HIS keys in the ignition, my set in my bookbag in the back seat. We parked at the jeweler's (we were picking up wedding bands), I dropped his keys into the pocket of my jacket, then decided it was such a nice day, I didn't need the jacket

... I tossed the jacket into the back seat, thinking to myself "I have my keys with me" and locked the door, just as I remembered that MY keys were also in the bookbag, locked in the back seat with HIS keys! Luckily, the jeweler had a jimmy bar! Debeepower

Summer 96

You know you're ADD when

...you publish an online newsletter and the June issue comes out on July 14th!!! MGHCoach

...you spend more time looking for your car in the parking lot than you did buying groceries for a family of seven Debeepower

...you put a potato in the oven 3 hrs ago and forgot about it until the smoke detector went off. (Yikes!!!!) ImWebby

...you stop at a UPS drop box to drop off a package and leave the car running with the keys locked in it

....in gear

....in front of a busy intersection

....with the only thing to stop it being the First of America Bank signpost across the street. And in the process of scrambling frantically to find your extra key in your wallet, you drop the wallet in the middle of the intersection and your credit cards go *everywhere* (Gee.. I wonder who would do such a thing.....?) And only after you get back into the (slightly dented) car do you realize that you didn't stick the UPS shipping label on the package when you dropped it into the drop-slot! ADHD in MI You go out specifically to pay a bill (that you forgot to mail because it was in a pile of "TO PAY") and you gather all the kids in the car and get halfway there and think to yourself - - "Where am I going? Why am I going there?" Then you realize you left the bill on the kitchen counter!! It was laying right next to the keys and sunglasses that I had picked up but my mind was only on getting the kids in the van!!!! LeeannS (Lee Ann Sestito)

...your Mom laughs at you when you say your ADD son is DRIVING YOU CRAZY! SuzaneW

...at one of the [online live] chats you IM yourself.. (ed. note: IM is short for Instant Message, a way for participants in a chat room to communicate with each other privately, with the rest of the room unaware and uninterrupted.) McckyMac (Linda M)

Spring 96

You know you're ADD when

... when you own 257 socks -- and can't find a mate for any of them. SusanS29

... you drive to work and then take the train home. But you never give the car parked in the company lot another thought till you walk up to your house and notice that the car isn't in the driveway. (That's a true personal story. I've related it to a few other ADD adults and found I wasn't the only one who did it. :) JimAMS

You tell your girlfriend you will meet her at O'hare airport and go together to the ADDA conference and she tells you that she is flying into Indianapolis because that's where you told her the conference was. (She was able to change the tickets. Phew!) Dan751

...you have a teleclass in five minutes (surely you don't have to set an alarm just to go to the bathroom!) and your dogs come into the bathroom wagging their tails and in playing with the dogs you decide that they need a quick walk around the block and while you're out you might as well stop at the deli and pick up some toilet paper, since you had to use a paper towel because you've been forgetting to get tp, and to congratulate yourself for remembering the toilet paper you go to get some tastee- delite and run into a friend you haven't seen in a while and decide to take the dogs back so that the two of you can meet for drinks and talk and then walk back into the house to hear, "We missed you tonite. Are you ok?" blaring out over your answering machine in a voice you recognize as someone you had talked to in the teleclass IMMEDIATELY preceeding the one you missed about a joint project that you were going to noodle in the missed class

oops. Good thing I wasn't teaching it!

Madelyn "every-time-I-don't-use-my-systems-they-bite- me in the <TOS>" Griffith-Haynie MGHCoach

...you are standing in front of the refrigerator, door open, and don't have a clue as to why Ratatat (Becky Booth)

You know you're ADD when you drive past your exit on the Interstate, turn around (after 5 miles) and then drive past it AGAIN! DeborahWR

....when everything is blurry and your eyes are bloodshot and are gonna pop out of your head , its way past your "normal" bedtime so you try to sleep but there is a wrinkle on the pillow that drives you nuts, so you fluff the pillow and then the alram goes off cause you set it wrong, then your mind wont shut up long enough to go to sleep, so you try reading a book and you can't concentrate on it and end up reading the same 3 lines for half an hour cause your too tired, so you turn on the idiot box and hear about how to make millions in real estate if you spend $395 right now, so you go back to bed but you still cant sleep cause your overtired, so you sign on AOL, come to the ADD msg board and babble along like a fool for a while in an enormously long run on sentence, till you pass out. (Yawn) GSL106 (Greg)

....when you realize every single thing Greg just said was about you, and then you realize how much you LOVE THIS PLACE AND THESE PEOPLE!!! JimAMS

This is something I saved from alt.support.attn-deficit. I didn't write it, but I felt it describes us exactly:

"Just try to explain to your boss, or someone, why it's so hard to keep your nose to the grindstone

...hey grindstone? That reminds me of those big stone coins they used to use hundreds of years ago. Wasn't that the Island of Yap? The Chinese also used round coins, except they're made of metal. I think I have one in this box somewhere. Hey! Check this out! I made this project back in high school. In fact, that reminds me, I used to know this girl

...let me look her up in my high school yearbook. Hang on

...well, I can't find my yearbook, but remember this old Ian Fleming novel? There's a girl who rides this scooter in Maine

...same kind of scooter they had in Quadrophrenia. Cool, I'm putting on a Who album. Hey, here's a Zappa record1 I think I saw something about him on the net

...check out this Web page!

Of course we all know about the infamous Web. It seems to have been invented solely to ruin whatever hope we had of doing any work for the rest of our lives Aristera (Karen)

America on Line has a vital and rapidly growing community of ADDers. JIMAMS, the official leader of the ADD on-line group is dedicated to AOL's leadership in the ADD online community. Along with an army of dedicated forum leaders including Annie12345, MaryDeee, Debette, and EricNJB (and many others), he has put together bulletin boards and live chat-room support groups on any topic they could think of that would affect the ADD community -- Newcomers, Parents & Partners, ADDults, Teens, Children, Medications, Alternative Solutions, and ADD in the Workplace are just a few of the areas that are supported and well attended.

They also sponsor large ADD conferences, live on-line, with invited guest who take questions from the "audience". Recent guests have included the authors of the most well known of the ADD books, and transcripts are available for downloading from their extensive library. They are an unusually welcoming group. Check 'em out!

This feature is a contribution of the America On-line ADD community. Submissions for this section come from the bulletin board section with the same title, by permission of the author.

To find the board: 1. log on to America On-Line 2. KEYWORD IMH (hold down the control key & K simultaneously and then type IMH -- which stands for Issues in Mental Health) 3. scroll to Attention Deficit Disorder and double click 4. scroll to the ADULTS with ADD folder 5. scroll to the topic LOL - You know you're ADD when 6. double click and you're in -- to read or to post.

You know you're ADD when

...you take a bite of a big pretzel while speed dialing the OFI bridge line and arrive at class with your mouth so full you can't talk!!!!

...you panic because it's suddenly September (which means you haven't filed this year's taxes plus now it's time to worry about Christmas!

...ITS PAY DAY AND YOU LEAVE YOUR PAY CHECK ON YOUR DESK WHEN GOING TO THE BANK TO DEPOSIT IT

...you're looking for your wallet for 30 minutes only to find that you're holding it in your hand!!!

...when you're finishing people's sentences because you can't wait for the response.

...when you can't remember your wife's name when asked to introduce her at a party.