I’ve heard of it before, but I never quite understood what it meant. Pregnant brain.

Several coworkers from my days as a producer at ABC News would complain about this “disease” from time to time. The things they’d forget blew my mind, and I would tease and taunt them until they’d say, “You wait, Nista…”

A few days ago I was pumping gas in my car. MainMan and I had just left the diamond store where we discussed the rebirth of the rings. Our local jeweler in Marina del Rey was about to make our dreams come true by tweaking MainMan’s parents’ heirlooms to fit my finger. We could not have been more pleased with the discussion (and I can’t wait to see the end result).

When we were finished, I gave MainMan a smooch and told him I’d see him later. I then drove my car across the street because my gas light was on. I had an afternoon full of walks ahead of me so I ran in to grab a soda and a PowerBar. Then I ran out of the quickie mart and dove into the car and pulled out.

To the tune of Will Ferrell in “Old School,” a man behind me yelled in what sounded like slow-mo, “NoooooOOOOOOOOO! Stawwwwwwpppppp!”

Clunk! Thud!

I looked in the rearview mirror and the embarrassing, horrifying, unthinkable had happened. I drove my car off with the fuel pump still in my car. The hose, torn in half, dangled at the side of my car.

The man parked behind me could not have been sweeter. He took the pump out and closed up my gas door as if nothing had happened.

“It’s OK, don’t worry about it.”

I sat there shaking, incredulous at what had just occurred.

“My only excuse is that I just got engaged and I’m in lalaland!” I yelled. It was the only thing I could think to say that might possibly explain my idiocy.

Some cratchety old lady a couple of lanes over left her car to yell, “Maybe you shouldn’t be driving if you’re so distraaaaacted!”

A few unkind words jumped to the tip of my tongue, but I warded them off.

A woman in a neon orange vest came right out.

“Did you see the white truck parked behind you? He was just here fixing the other one,” she said laughing.

I apologized to her repeatedly like I’d just run over her cat. I had to fill out an incident report. Apparently the gas pumps are built for this these days because it happens more often than you’d think.

Kola called me to ask what the best engagement moment of the day was. I told her there were two… and I asked her if she wanted the good one or the bad one first.