Seeing But Not Seeing

At a Christmas party, one of the group violated the first commandment of living through a Minnesota winter: Never leave your car keys in your overcoat. The event was held at a home, and someone else had gone home with Warren's keys. K and I were leaving the event when Warren discovered the problem and had achieved an irascibility level of about 7 on a ten point scale. I had a flashlight and a cellphone, so I was able to help him contact the special service that came with his car. Once the car was open, Warren said, he had a spare key hidden in the console between the front seats.

A minute or two after he spoke with the service, his headlights flashed, and the locks released on all four doors, and Warren was busy examining every part of the center console.

No keys, and the irascibility score was approaching 12 on the ten point scale. Warren did all the logical things men do at such times - he went through the console several times and began looking in other possible places where the key might be. Nothing.

Warren was about to set the all time irascibility scale score when his wife arrived and inquired, "What's the matter?" Warren gave a succinct summary. His wife opened the rear door on the passenger side, pulled up a cup-like thing, opened it up, pulled out a key and asked, "Is this what you're looking for?"

At this point in such a situation, the irascibility scale divides into the public and private sectors of measurement. If you know most men of a certain age, you can do the numbers without any help from me.

I have thought about this situation often since that cold dark night - mainly about that when we have decided where something is, then that's where we look....and look....and look. Failure leads us to broaden the search to some degree but because we know where something ought to be, it seems difficult to break away from our original perception and to redefine the problem.

Lately, I've been having the same problem around the house, and a good example of this occurred last night. I was getting ready to wrap packages, and I had bought a new roll of Scotch tape. I remembered taking it into the kitchen, got caught up in some other activity, and then couldn't find the damn thing. I looked everywhere in the kitchen, then broadened my search to the stairs, the table in the living room, the table where I had planned to wrap. By now I was nearing a perfect ten on the irascibility scale, and the dog had moved purposefully to another part of the house.

One last shot I thought, knowing that without tape, I was flummoxed. Back into the kitchen. Then I saw it, the little plastic tape dispenser, on its side on the counter. No doubt I had looked at it thirty times but had never seen it.

In much the same way, dishwashing detergent, my own car keys, a pen, disappear from view in plain sight. It's clear that we need to avoid determining what something looks like or where something is, open our minds, and wait for the image to settle in a brain made tranquil by deliberation and not tied up in knots with frustration.

Or maybe that comment I make from time to time about my brains dribbling out my ears is truer than I might have thought.