🔥 I have turned my car around three times this month just to check the gas knob

Three times this month I have already turned the car around within the first two minutes of leaving the house, convinced I forgot to switch off the gas. Twice it was fine, exactly as I left it, sitting in the off position like it always does. The third time it really was still on, low flame, the kettle long since boiled dry with a faint burnt smell I only noticed once I had already come back inside. That third time ruined it for me completely, because now every doubt feels justified even though the odds are still heavily in my favor. My wife has stopped being annoyed and started timing me instead. She says I lose about four minutes to this on a normal day, sometimes eight if I am already near the main road and have to loop back through the colony gate. I have tried the obvious fixes. A photo of the knob before leaving, which worked for about a week before I forgot to check the photo too. Saying it out loud, gas is off, gas is off, like some small prayer, which mostly makes me feel a bit ridiculous standing alone in my own kitchen. I even tried a small sticky note on the steering wheel for a while. Until the note itself became just another thing I stopped noticing after a few drives. My mother says her mother did the same thing with the front door lock for thirty years and never once found it unlocked. Maybe this gets handed down along with the house itself, one small useless worry passed from one kitchen to the next. I have stopped fighting it and just built four extra minutes into how long it takes me to leave anywhere. My son thinks it is funny. He has started asking at the door, checked the gas, before I even get the chance to turn around myself.

The sticky note failing after a week is the most relatable part of this whole post, I did the same thing with a reminder on my phone lock screen and stopped reading it within days. Has anyone near you tried those small gas leak alarms that beep on their own if something is left running? My neighbor near Tolichowki swears by his after a scare a couple of years back.

Four minutes does not sound like much, a colleague of mine in Kompally once drove all the way back from his office near Miyapur because he could not remember locking his scooter, close to forty minutes gone for nothing. The kettle boiling dry would finish me off completely, I think I would stop trusting myself after that too. At least your family finds it funny instead of getting annoyed about the delay.

My grandmother did the exact same thing with her stove for as long as I can remember, except she never turned back, she just called my grandfather from the market and made him go check instead. Reading about your mother's mother and the door lock made me realize this really does skip a generation and land somewhere else entirely. I catch myself doing it with the iron box now, never the gas.