A rant that is worse than pointless to make at home:
No, I don’t know where your glasses/keys/library books/shoes/underwear are. If you think you might want something at a later date, please put it away someplace you can expect to find it. I don’t need to call you at work to scream about how the kids are hiding stuff* from me because I have specific places I normally place things. Putting your (see list) under the sofa/behind the hand cream/in a kitchen cupboard counts as “putting them away” only when that is where you expect to look first.
In addition, I am not psychic and have no idea you will need something I keep in my car unless you tell me. Telling me involves interaction, in which I indicate hearing you. Standing in the bedroom and talking when I am in a completely different part of the house does not mean you told me. In addition, I am often busy myself and will stand around for only so long waiting for addenda to a conversation. Do not be surprised that I have left the room when you resume talking. Honest, I thought that thirty-second pause following a completed paragraph meant you were done.
If I ask you to repeat something, please repeat the whole statement. Especially the quiet part. Repeating the loud part without the quiet part leaves me as in the dark as before.
If we are alone and you want to complain about somebody at work or pass along a particularly juicy rumor you do not need to whisper.
Yes, the kids have their own interpretation of “putting stuff away,” which has resulted in me finding mail some months after it was delivered. And it’s not like I’m OCD about putting stuff away. I have simply learned my lesson and have some standard places I can expect to find things like my glasses, which are needed to find other things.
Actually, my keys and my glasses are about the only things I can always locate. If I’ve forgotten something (which I frequently do), I can always go back for it–provided that I haven’t just locked myself out of my car or my home. For anything other than glasses and keys, all bets are off.
Nice rant. I’m glad I don’t live at your house, or the rant would probably apply to me.
I’m going to tidy my work area, now. slinks off sheepishly
Actually, keys, glasses, and wallet are the only things I can ALWAYS find, too. The glasses are easy because I buy cheap ones and my prescription hasn’t changed so the lenses outlive the maximum attractiveness of the frames so I have glasses laying all over the house and work.
As for losing other stuff, I lose things all the time. I just keep looking until I find them. If I should say that something is lost it is because it is REALLY lost and that I have torn the house apart three times looking for it, not that I gave up after two minutes.
My last roomie and I had a deal: she would tell me where I left my glasses, and I would give her backrubs and bake her cookies. Of course, the only reason this worked was because she was psychic (or some unreasonable facsimile thereof) and unfailingly knew just where I’d put them, and also, I baked cookies A LOT.
It’s a guy thing. “Looking for” something that isn’t going to enhance a man’s view of himself as a man (as in “looking for a new route to the Americas” “looking for a cure for cancer” “looking for a way through the defensive line” - you know, that sort of thing) just isnt’ part of their makeup. (I’m making the leap here that you are referring to your husband/SO) Tell a man it’s in the fridge, which is filled to bursting with food, and he will open it, scan the front of the top shelf without moving his head, and close the door reporting: “it’s not there”. Pretty much the same goes for everything.
I’ve adjusted.
As part of the deal, he’s adjusted to the fact that lifting anything over 5 pounds when I’m not actually working out is completely impossible for me, as is killing a bug.
Around my house, I always have to ask, “Was it a real look, or was it a Husband Look?” A “Husband Look,” as I have learned, seems to involve merely walking into the room where I suggested the item might be, and then throwing up one’s hands when it doesn’t leap out and bite him on the ass.
[sub](Sorry. At a ChiDopeFest, silent-bob said the biggest surprise for him was that I was a guy.)[/sub]
No, the SO to whom I am referring is my wife, Mrs Zone. The reason the world has “a new route to the Americas” or “a way through the defensive line” is because some obsessive guy kept looking until he found one. And somebody, male or female, and probably a LOT of somebodies, are figuratively tearing their houses apart for that cancer cure, too. Admit defeat? That’s a “girl” thing.
She, the chemist, sprays bugs with Formula 409 (“It eats away at their protective wax coating and they dehydrate!”) or swats them, leaving their rotting corpses on the wall as a warning to the rest. (Okay, maybe she IS a guy.) I catch bugs with a tissue, crush the tissue (and the bugs), and flush the lot. I do the lifting (“Ever since my C-section I just can’t lift anything. Boo-hoo-hoo!”)
Well I knew you were a guy from all your missing crap that I’ve got. Broken comb, grody old toothbrush, toenail clippers, favorite old sweatshirt. Yuk. Why doncha lose something cool, like a DVD player, sometime?
I don’t have any of your wife’s stuff, as you well know. It’s all right under her nose. BTW, who do you think sends me this junk of yours? Take a closer look at the smirk on her face next time your favorite holey old shirt disappears!
Ah, you, are just the dubiously dubbed “keeper of stuff”. It’s a thankless position. There is one in every household that all other members of the household expect to “know” (through psychic powers, general knowledge or world vibes) where everything is.
I feel for you, hon. Luckily, in my house, I’m it since I live alone. But I remember my mother being the “keeper of stuff”. I’ll bet she would have loved to have been able to vent here…
And yes, you are a man. Okay. But that doesn’t change the fact that you are the King of Stuff.
You got it, dropzone. Listen closely next time she say’s she hasn’t seen your missing stuff. She isn’t saying “It must be lost”. She’s saying “It must be Losts”. She’s been faking you out for years. I wouldn’t have let her secret out if she’d send something good once in a while…do I ever get cash? Nooooo, guess who keeps that!
My fiance is the keeper of stuff. Which, thank God, he does without complaining. I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attatched to my body. Plus, I don’t have the patience to look either.
My daughter has anointed me (with due and proper reverence): “Momma, Finder of All Lost Things”. She must have that extra chromosome, 'cos she can never find anything either.
Things sound a bit tense at your house, dropzone. Need a back rub or something?
I’ve long dismissed this as a sign of one friend’s mental illness. We could be (and have been!) in another state but hey, the person being discussed could be the second cousin of the brother-in-law of the guy walking past the(closed)window, so it’s better to whisper.
My darling Marcie loses her keys several times a week. We know she had them when she got home since she did bring her car back from work. She loses her glasses almost every night and often cannot find her favorite coffee mug. We frequently have to search the entire house for the TV remote simply because she picks it up and takes it with her when she leaves the area. Her bedroom looks like an outlaw biker gang held spring training there. She talks to me from upstairs when I am in the garage and expects me to have heard every word she says. I say she is careless, she says she is a “free spirit.”
I, on the other hand, am absolutely perfect, never losing anything and always returning things to their assigned places. I say I am organized, Marcie says I am retentive.
For anything other than glasses and keys, all bets are off.