Thursday, March 26, 2009

Is There Such A Thing as Object Blindness ?

Let me explain what I mean, as I have two fairly recent examples of a phenomena that I can only describe as "object blindness".

  Yesterday morning, I was in the bathroom at our house. Yes, I was in my underwear, but I don't see what that has to do with the story. Anyway, I was flossing, and I kinda cut the corner of my mouth with the floss, so I was looking for the Carmex to put on it.

  The Carmex is usually right next to the sink on the left side. I looked there, and did not see it. Saw my beard clipper and some diabetes supplies, but no Carmex. I figured that one of the girls had come into the bathroom and grabbed at it, so My Special Lady had put it out of their reach. I looked in the drawers and the bins on the counter-not there. I looked on My Special Lady's bedside table-not there. I looked at my own bedside table-not there. I decided that I would ask My Special lady if she had seen it when I was all done with my teeth.
  
  I walked back into the bathroom, and sitting on the counter, right where it ALWAYS is, was the Carmex. Nobody had entered or left the room. So, it must have been there all along, right ? But I KNOW I had  looked there. Object blindness.

 And that reminded me of a time a couple of weeks ago: I was on my way to work, and I had not had time for breakfast,or maybe was out of cereal, I don't really know, the point is, I had not eaten breakfast at home, and I needed to eat something so I could take my meds. I decided to go to McDonald's and buy a delicious but evil Sausage McGriddle.

  I came to a red light, and the McDonald's was down the block to the right. I looked around, saw no "No Turn On Red" sign, so I made my right turn and went off to McDonald's. By a quirk of traffic flow(no left turn out of the McDonald's' lot), I ended up at the same stop light going the same direction going from the McDonald's to my office. I sat at the red light, and as I glanced at the light, I noticed that right next to the light itself was a "NO TURN ON RED" sign. I had not seen it just three minutes ago. And I had LOOKED for it.

  Object blindness. 

What do you think ?

2 comments:

Lauren Matson said...

The obvious and only answer to this is GHOSTS. Call the people on the TV with the night vision camera goggles!

Paticus said...

Lauren: Ghosts !! Of course !!!