I have to be very careful around my husband not to look for things, or to say, “I wonder where my … is” or anything remotely like it.
He will instantly assume responsibility for finding the lost thing, even if I don’t care like “I wonder where my pen is… Oh well, I’ll just use this cheapie one for now and the good one will turn up.”
He then embarks on Operation Take The House Apart, and I have to rush around putting stuff back, and assuring him that the pen won’t be in the trash liner drawer… It drives him mad that I lose things and it drives me mad that we have to smash the house up and Find It NOW.
It used to work that I could just keep my mouth shut and surruptitiously (that isn’t spelled right…) hunt for things but after 15 years together he knows the symptoms so if I lose anything, and I do, every single bloody day, I have to wait till he’s gone to bed before I can look for it!!
Huh. At first glance I expected this thread to be about the literal interpretation of “Do you know where X is?”–that is, as a yes/no question. It’s pretty common in Linux (and related) circles, where it’s often considered mildly irritating at best (or rude at worst) to ask a yes/no question when you really want a more detailed answer. In those situations, it’s actually more polite to ask “How do I compile a kernel?” than “Do you know how to compile a kernel?” or (much worse) “Can you help me with the new kernel?”.
I’ve gotten pretty good at switching between that and general society, where it’s generally considered more polite to ask the yes/no question, and you expect to get the detailed answer in return. Every once in a while, though, someone in meatspace (the “real” world) expects a Linux-style question instead of a general-society-style yes/no question and it throws me for a loop. The other day I stopped into an office for a non-profit and asked someone, “Do you know how to get to the Old Town Transit Center from here?” He answered simply “Yes” and stared at me until I realized what he was expecting. I then asked, “How do you get to the Old Town Transit Center?” and got my answer. It was a strange experience, and at the time I thought, “How rude!”, but in hindsight the guy was probably fresh from giving Linux help to newbies on IRC or something.
Seconded. My wife and I ask each other where things are around the house on a pretty regular basis. It’s just a simple question that can easily be answered “No, sorry,” with no offense either given or taken.
Oh, great! :: shoulders slump with relief :: Do you know where my old keyring is, you know, the yellow plastic one that sort of looks like a mountain-climber’s carabiner? I haven’t seen it in months. Thanks!
When Mr. S asks me if I know where X is, I understand it to mean “Have you seen X recently?” Usually I’ll just respond that I have no idea where it is (if I don’t), but quite often X will turn out to be in plain sight, only perhaps slightly out of position from its usual place, or partly obscured by some other object. This drives me nuts. He’ll be looking for something in the fridge, can’t find it, and I go over there and find it on exactly the shelf I told him it was on, but a little bit behind the mustard. He then complains about the mustard obscuring his view of X, instead of considering that maybe sometimes you have to MOVE THINGS AROUND and REALLY LOOK, instead of just giving a casual glance, when you’re LOOKING FOR SOMETHING. He seems to expect that X will just jump out at him.
I brought up the gender issue because of the Roseanne Barr quote eleanorigby used, specifically the “uterus” and “I am not your mother” parts. This struck me as a generalization of “Don’t ever ask me where something is!” I agree though, that asking a person “have you seen my phone?” after your second date with them is extremely weird, and not what my OP was about.
I constantly ask my husband to find things because he is much better at finding my stuff than I am - I tend to suffer from hysterical blindness after a few minutes of looking for things. Of course, I usually phrase it as “I can’t find X! HELP!”
My wife routinely misplaces her keys and her cellphone. We can usually find them, looking together, in short order. No biggy.
A friend of mine is such a ditz that her husband, with her bemused consent, won’t let her carry cash or their passports when they travel. She’s lost or misplaced them far too often.
Funny…my wife and I both have this problem sometimes. If either of us gets the idea that the other is the least bit stressed about not being able to find something, we go into mega-hunt mode. This is immediately followed by the other party providing a steady stream of, “No, don’t worry about it,” “it’s not a big deal,” “sweetheart, it’s fine!” and “I’ll figure it out” proclaimations.
Whenever I ask my dad if he’s seen something of mine, he deliberately gets up, checks the calendar, and announces, “Nope, not my day to watch it!” He STILL does this. Depending upon the urgency of my need to locate the missing object, my reactions range from good-humour to complete frustration of course, then, he’ll usually volunteer to look around, so it’s all good.
This reminds me of a totally smart-aleck way my daughter used to answer this, back when she was in high school.
Me: “I don’t know where I put my phone …”
Her, in a very giggle-y, loud voice: “IF IT WAS UP YOUR @$$ YOU’D KNOW WHERE IT WAS!!”
Which was so ridiculously out-of-character for her that we would both dissolve in laughter.
What that has done is to break me (and her brother) from phrasing the question that way. We say “Have you seen …”.
Hostile Dialect: That guy you asked about the transit station? That’s exactly how my Dad would have answered that. Heh.
To answer the OP: I wouldn’t necessarily interpret this question as a request for help. I would probably ask the person “Would you like me to help you find it?”.
I think that this situation may be a form of confirmation bias:[ul][li]First human looks for stuff daily and finds 99% of stuff.[]That person occasionally can’t find something and enlists help from the other human around.[]Second human finds it half the time.[]First human feels that personal success rate is 99.5% with an occasional assist from second human filling in the gap.[]Second human jumps to conclusion that first human never looks for stuff alone, and is only 50% effective even with help.[/ul]Anyway, I do my best to respect my wife’s time, but I occasionally do ask for help.[/li]
My wife moves things around. A lot.
She doesn’t get bristly if I ask her if she recalls ever seeing some object.
Many years ago when we lived in an apartment, I had a set of deep sockets in a small box, and, without garage or basement, I tucked them into a tiny nook behind the door jamb on one side of a closet. All was good for many months.
Then one day I needed them and could not find them. When asked, my wife walked over to the sewing machine table and lifted up the leaf. My little box had apparently been of the perfect size to sit on the nearby desk and prop up the sagging sewing machine leaf.
I would have never had a chance at finding that.
Oh, and it was extra tricky because I had to describe deep sockets to a non-mechanical person who was a newcomer to the English language.
One of the few things my ex-to-be said she would miss when I moved out was my somewhat uncanny ability to see through solid objects when we would go looking for lost items around the house.
I’m still trying to figure out what eleanorigby is on about. For one thing, what does being divorced have to do with anything? Unless she’s married, and she was personalizing the question. To echo Aspidistra, why would the guy even ask that question? In my own experience, a woman that I’ve gone on all of two dates with has not seen the inside of my apartment. Third date, maybe. Even then, there is no way I’d expect her to know where anything of mine is. If she’s been to my place a hundred times, I wouldn’t expect her to know where something is, assuming that being on the phone with her means she’s not at my place right now. So, if, after a second date, I’m asking her that question, I’m doing it in a joking way. If that’s a deal breaker with her, then she’s got some issues. And I’m pretty sure that eleanorigby doesn’t have those sorts of issues.
What piece of the puzzle am I missing in this scenario?
Now there’s a sentence you don’t hear very often.
I don’t mind when my husband asks, as I am the one who is home more and does more of the tidying, and with toddlers who like to bring me items or put them in odd places. So I am probably more likely to know where missing things are in the house. I don’t take it as a command to help him look for it though, and I am trying to teach my kids to keep track / look for things themselves too. But if I know where it is I will tell them.
It’s only annoying to me if they ask me where something is before they even look for it at all. Like, have you seen my shoes? Well, are they in the entryway where they are each and every day? You don’t know? Well, perhaps you should look before you ask where they are. Then it does seem like they are just asking me to bring them the item. This is more a problem I have with my 3 year old though, not adults. It’s like if the item is not directly in my son’s hands right now, or he is not directly looking at it, he will ask me where it is. So I am teaching him to look for things himself. Perhaps some people lacked this important step in their own childhoods.
My interpretation of the two-date issue is that the caller has misplaced his cell phone somewhere and had to have been at the person’s apartment at some point, otherwise the question makes no sense at all. So the question really should be, “I can’t find my cell phone, and I was wondering if I’d mistakenly left it at your place. Have you run across it by any chance?”
Where is X, is a yes/no question to me. Not so for the husband. When he asks where X is, he absovles himself of any further responsibility of trying to locate X. He assumes it becomes my job just because he asked. Granted sometimes I’ll say nope, but let me look here; however I found that made it my problem. Later (when he obviously hadn’t been looking for his lost item) he’d get all bent out of shape if I hadn’t found it or if I wasn’t even looking for it. I tried the, no, did you look there? response but that didn’t seem to not make it my problem either. I now respond with ask the kids and make it their problem.
of course, then, he’ll usually volunteer to look around, so it’s all good.