“Error prone” is often applied to a person. I recount an event that made me aware that sometimes I was badly error prone and that it was probably correlated with being ill.

When I was perhaps 6 years old I had some sort of head cold but was nonetheless ready for breakfast—perhaps not quite awake. As usual my mother had fixed eggs and grapefruit for me. I put salt on my grapefruit. Uggh! Sugar goes on grapefruit … dumb! I was aware that sometime one screws up and just ‘Be more careful.’. Then I put sugar on my eggs. Double Uggh!!

At that point I saw a pattern. One such error for was rare. Two such errors indicated that something was amiss and today was different. I resolved to go back to bed. I don’t recall further screw ups that day but I have never forgotten to beware of periods of incompetence.