Is this a teenaged brain thing

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DS, 16, has this weird habit of treating everything I say as being immediate. For example i’ll finish my cup of tea before him, go to put my cup in the dishwasher and say ‘the dishwasher can go on when your cup goes in,’ and he’ll snap back, ‘I haven’t finished my tea yet.’ or I’ll be putting a load of washing in and say to him, ‘you’ll need to get your school shirts washed for tomorrow,’ and he’ll snap at me that he can’t put them in yet because I’ve got washing in already. Or we’ll be in the supermarket and I’ll say, ‘oh, I must get some more milk,’ and he’ll snap at me that we aren’t at the milk aisle yet.

We’ve had so many conversations about this, that I don’t always mean it has to be now, that I’ll just mention something needs doing because I’m thinking of it, or say something needs doing soon, just not exactly now or next in the series of events. He doesn’t seem to be able to get it through his head, like he’ll understand if I say ‘I don’t mean now, I mean when we get to the milk aisle,’ he just doesn’t seem to be able to apply that reasoning himself. I find it very odd, I don’t remember being like that, and it can be infuriating when he’s snapping at me. In every other way his mental reasoning and sequencing is fine. He can be a bit impatient sometimes but he’s a teenager, but I just don’t get this at all. Is this one of those weird teenage brain developmental things, you know, like when you play peepo with a baby and they actually think you’ve disappeared, or is it just a DS thing?

he’s never shown any signs of or been suspected of having any SEND BTW.

Have you considered how you are speaking to him? Do you really need to tell him to wash his school shirts or put the dishwasher on when it's full or even that you need to get milk? I wonder if he is being defensive because you are telling him things he either already knows or does not need to be told?

I think it's a teenage thing. My son can be quite snappy on occasion (often due to ADHD but not always) so I try to phrase things differently to avoid it and explain what I mean if he takes things the wrong way.
My partner says he can remember being like that as a teenager. Snapping and replying angrily for not really any reason. Probably a mixture of hormones. He said it just stopped as he got older and he's quite the opposite as an adult...definitely just a phase!

No, these are just passing comments, not nagging, or shouting, or me being unreasonable. The problem isn’t what I’m saying or the way I’m saying it, the issue is that he seems to struggle to process the fact that I don’t always mean immediately. He’s not always snapping, he just consistently doesn’t seem to understand that I don’t mean now.

Maybe he's fed up of you always jumping ahead? Or being generally naggy.
Teenagers can snap easily, I did..

You sound like your narrating everything. Some people find this very annoying. It sounds more like different personality issue.

I agree with this. People who narrate everything drive me nuts.

He doesn’t need to know about the dishwasher if he’s not starting it. The milk one seems like a self-reminder. I’d say to him “could you remind me we need milk when we get to the aisle?” I think you may have a habit of announcing things that are irrelevant to him. Perhaps cut down on that and rephrase others and see how he is.

It's a mixture of annoying narrative mum being mum and teenager being teenager. I'm 34 and I block out 90% of what my Mum says in her jabbering to herself and the cat unless I need some actually useful information 😂.