My husband made hamburgers for lunch today. I wanted baked beans with mine but when I looked in the cupboard, I saw none. I had realized earlier in the day that I really need a grocery run and I berated myself for letting yet another thing run out.
About two minutes ago I looked in the cupboard again. I have an 8-can case of baked beans just sitting there! I swear there are elves in this house. Their sole job is to hide things and drive me insane. Either that or things are hiding in plain sight.
Now some of this is actually normal. Everyone who has had a psychology class on attention in the last 20 years knows about the “gorilla” walking through the basketball game. Because they are paying attention to the number of passes in the game, a good percentage of people watching the video totally overlook the gorilla. The concept is called inattentional blindness.
I was looking for loose, individual cans and not a box. Certainly the box not satisfying my search criteria had something to do with it.
But let’s be honest. While some of my inability to see things right in front of my face has to do with inattention and preconceived notions of what I am looking for, a lot of the problem is my poor vision.
I have blind spots. I am also badly near-sighted. It can be a rough combination at times. Add to that the fact I am disorganized and sloppy, and it can be a recipe for frustration.
Sometimes I just handle it by having lots of supplies. Take pens for example. I have a pile of “junk” paper under my chair, I use it to take notes in therapy. Today I dropped a pen down there…somewhere. It was easier to grab another pen than try to find it.
But again, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit I spend hours in a week searching for things I have sat down and now cannot find. My phone, iPad and glasses come to mind. They are usually in plain sight…for other people. My unlit iPad in its black Otter case is sitting on the black tray of my CCTV. My unlit phone is sitting on top of the iPad. Somewhere in the weird recesses of my mind I guess I thought if I lost them together, they would be easier to find. Maybe?
I looked for ideas about how to deal with blind spots. The internet has lots of ideas for eliminating blind spots while we are driving. It has almost as many articles on eliminating psychological blind spots. I found pretty much nothing on dealing with blind spots when you are actually visually impaired.
Having a place for everything and everything in its place has been suggested to me. Did I mention I am a slob? And a piler. Also, my husband’s ideas of the proper places for things really don’t match mine.
Consequently, I default to “borrowing” other people’s eyes quite a bit. Refrains of “where did I put…” are heard multiple times a day. There is also the ever popular “Do we have any…” My husband is pretty good. He has only suggested I hang things around my neck a few times and has refrained from suggesting things be nailed to my hand. When alone and in a pinch, I have also used Be My Eyes to find things, although I hate for people to see the clutter in the house.
Bringing me to the question: how do you handle the things hiding in plain sight problem? Next time I would really like to find those baked beans!
Written April 15th, 2021