🔥 I keep turning the car around to check the gas

3 times this month I've driven off and then turned the car around to check the gas. Twice it was off, exactly how I left it. The 3rd time it was still on. Low flame under the kettle. The water was long gone, and the whole kitchen smelled burnt and a bit metallic. I switched it off, stood in the kitchen for a minute, and felt a little sick. Now every doubt feels right. My wife has started timing me, on her phone, from the door. She says I lose about 4 minutes a day. Some days 8, if I'm already near the main road. Then I have to loop back through the colony gate, and the watchman waves at me again. He has seen my car turn around so many times that he now says good morning twice, once each way. I've tried fixes. A photo of the knob before leaving worked for a week. Then I forgot the photo. I tried saying it out loud, gas is off, gas is off, like a prayer. Felt ridiculous. I stuck a note on the steering wheel. By day 8 it was just part of the car. Next idea is a rubber band around the car key. Dumb, but I'm running out of ideas. My mother says her own mother did this with the front door lock for 30 years. Never once found it open, she says. She just kept going back to check, every single morning. So maybe it's passed down with the house, like the old cupboard nobody can open. My daughter has started saying, checked the gas, before I even reach the gate.

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?

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.