" I DON'T SEE IT ! "

 How often do you find yourself standing in front of the open refrigerator looking for something but you just can't see it ?  If you're anything like me the answer to that is ALL THE TIME !  I will go to get a jar of olives and swear that I put them in a particular spot but I just don't see them.  Nine times out of ten they are staring me in the face because I am looking for a red jar but have forgotten that the last time I bought them they were in a green jar so I am looking right at them but just don't realize it.  I will spend five minutes moving things around, searching behind things, thinking they MUST be in here somewhere and sure enough, DUH !, I realize they are right where I thought they were but I was looking for the wrong packaging. BUT . . .  I WILL find them !!!!

Now take the exact same situation but put Your Man there standing in front of the same refrigerator/closet/cabinet and what happens ?  YUP . . . he will stand there for three hours saying . . . . . . "I don't see it !" without ever moving a single thing.  He will continue to stand there saying this over and over until you get up and say, "Here, let me look!" and sure enough you find what he wants in a matter of seconds because you have moved the carton of milk which is standing in front of the item being searched for.  All it takes is moving one thing and    VOILA !!!!!!!!     MAGIC !!!!    PRESTO-CHANGE-O !!!!! the item in question suddenly appears our of thin air.  Or so it seems to The Man. 

This happens all the time. It gets pretty tiresome because most of the time I am in the middle of doing something but I have to stop to help the poor slob or he will remain in that spot forever.  It is like the deer in the headlights, they freeze and can't move.  Just the other morning The Man was searching for a regulator to use on his oxygen tank. Off the top of my head I can tell your where there are at least 3 of these things but The Man couldn't find a single one.  These particular items are like paper clips, you see them laying around everywhere until you need one, then you can't find any.  Of course if you put them away in ONE place then you might just be able to find one when you need it but that is just too silly a concept to ever consider.  Instead The Man stuffs them in random drawers, on random shelves, in boxes and cabinets, under beds and in the car. Then when he needs one he can't find any!  He is like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter and then starving to death in January because he can't remember where the hell he put his food.

Back to our regulators . . . .   I walked into the laundry room yesterday and there stood The Man staring at the big metal shelves that take up one whole wall of the room.  When I first started coming to The Farm with The Man these shelves were PACKED with cooking items. Pressure cookers, (plural), crock pots, (plural), pots, pans, baking pans . . . so many things.  Over the past 7 years I have managed to put most of these items in the basement so that we can use the shelves for more practical items like bags of potato chips, cookies, soda and snacks.  You know, IMPORTANT things !!!  (I sure as hell do NOT need pressure cookers and crock pots. ONE little crock pot is all we need.) I have managed to clean off two of the shelves, one for our stuff and one for The Man's stuff.  Every time I find oxygen related items stuffed here and there I pick them up and put them on his one shelf. This shelf is now overflowing with tubes, containers, and Heaven only knows what. But it is all in one place.  And so when The Man said he was looking for a regulator for his oxygen tank I sent him out to the shelf in the laundry room.  (He had not realized this one shelf had all his stuff on it and I doubt that even after standing and staring at it for twenty minutes he even realizes it now.) There he stood, standing right in front of a shelf that is at eye level, not moving a single item, just staring and saying over and over, "I DON'T SEE IT !".  He did not look in back of boxes or IN boxes, he just stood there saying,  . . .  well, you know exactly what he said don't you !!

It turns out there were no regulators on the shelf but it really was worth the show.  It cracks me up every time.  I finally took pity on the poor guy and went out to the car where I knew there was one of what he was searching for. I knew this because when we had left Florida to head to Michigan I packed the car and put one of the regulators in the back of the car just in case of an emergency.  It was still where I had left it and The Man was happier than the proverbial pig in poop.  Will he be able to find where he left it when he takes it off his tank, probably not, but by then I will have found ten more of them and put them where they belong. 

A quick little note added on to this story . . .  HAPPY BIRTHDAY to The Man.  Yesterday we celebrated his 76th birthday with a small gathering of his 3 brothers and their wives.  It was a beautiful sunny day to sit outside and chat, drink beer and eat a really tasty taco dip that I made.  The left overs are in the fridge. I wonder how long it will take The Man to find them ?