Pickles by Brian Crane for July 09, 2023

It’s not that, Opal. Nelson has been taking lessons from, Earl.

Opal, I know what you mean. Sigh.

He would have found a chocolate bar hidden behind a watermelon!

“Male refrigerator blindness” is definitely a thing! I just don’t know why? Like my guy is actually really detail oriented, he builds houses for a living and he’s always been really good at puzzles, strategy and problem solving games and he can take apart just about anything and fix it then put it back together, but ask him to get something out of the fridge and just like Nelson he’ll claim it’s nowhere to be found despite being right in front of his face and in the same place it always is!?

When I look for the orange juice, the process is something like this: I picture a clear plastic bottle with a green top located in the fridge door near but not at the bottom right corner. If I don’t see THAT THING in the expected location, I look around in all the other places that are tall enough. There’s one chance in maybe 10 or 20 that I’ll notice a bottle that is NOT the color or shape I expect… and maybe 80% or a bit better that I’ll find what I’m looking for in some other place. So if you want to hide it from me, move it more than 8 inches and put on a different color cap. It takes me about 45 to 90 seconds to find it or give up.

Spouse, on the other hand, seems to look at each item in the fridge. Twice. Slowly. Moving things out of the way to look behind. Even if the shelf is too short (hey, it COULD be lying down, right?). She seldom fails to find it, though if it’s not where she THOUGHT it should be, she does complain. It takes her between a minute and three minutes to find it and as much as 6 minutes to fail to find it.

This is actually reflected in the way we shop the grocery store: I go in with my list and go to each item, more or less in “location order”, pick it up if I find it, ask a clerk if it’s not there and I NEED it… and then go check out. With a long list, it’s about 30 minutes. Spouse goes in and walks around the produce section at LEAST twice in different paths, then goes after the items on her list in LIST ORDER, scanning every item on both sides of every aisle that she passes through. Sometimes more than once if she backtracks to get something she already passed. She NEVER gets out of the store in less than an hour. And if I’m with her, and mention that she’s already gotten everything on her list and I’d like to leave now, she slows down and looks even more carefully (seems like).

Guys have several forms of blindness. Dave Barry chronicled Floor Blindness, one of the greatest forms. That’s where we can’t see certain things that are on the floor.

Must be something like female logic avoidance

What refrigerator?

I have that condition and it drives my wife nuts! :-)

Guys often comment where none is needed but miss the chance to speak up where comment would help. They exist in the what just happened? world.

Must be a married guy thing. I live by myself and never have trouble finding anything in my refrigerator.

And when it includes the complete inability to look under or behind other objects, you have my guy. I tell him they don’t make refrigerators that are 6” deep and 10’ wide!

I, too have that condition, and not only with the fridge!

I call it reverse hallucinations. I don’t see things that are there.

“The salad dressing is in the door” “There’s eight bottles in the door” “AND ONE OF THE BOTTLES IS THE SALAD DRESSING!” “Which bottle?” “AAARRRGGGH!”

she shoulda fetched it herself

When there are just two shelves, which is the “middle” shelf? No wonder he’s confused.

Forget it, Opal, men/boys will just play “stupid” so you have to do it yourself. It’s a thing that is done to make you, the woman, feel like your important. Then, they don’t have to lift a finger!

Hunter versus gatherer. A gatherer sees the area so they can get all the fruit in that area as fruit and vegetables tend to group close by each other. A hunter focuses on one item to the exclusion of everything else. A man who pursues two rabbits catches neither.

Sexist

That’s the truth! Why is that?

It’s not just males; sometimes I look into the fridge and can’t see what’s right in front of me.

The male bashing in Pickles – like stupid men in tv commercials – is really getting old.

Nelson is staring directly at it because it says “concentrate”.

Really, Nelson?

My husband one day said that we out of tissues. I told him there was another box in the hall closet, second shelf from the top, right in front. He went to the closet and I hear, “I can’t find it”. I reiterated where it was, he still can’t find it. I get up, go to the closet and on the second shelf from the top, right in front, RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS NOSE, was the box of tissues. He said he didn’t see it cause it wasn’t stored flat but was on it’s side. It was still RIGHT IN FRONT, AT EYE LEVEL!!

Perhaps……

If a guy opens the refrigerator 20 times a day like you do, he will see what you see. What do you see under the hood of a car, if you only open it once a year?

I’m the “ice box (refrigerator) man” in our home. Ref: George Carlin

Well, when the frig is packed with a zillion Tupperware bowls and bottles, it’s like a jungle in there.

Boy howdy, it sure does.

Not to mention Selective Hearing.

The woman is just plain mean.

Sorry but in this house the problem is reversed.

If you want something done right, do it yourself, but ignore the instructions.

We come by it honest.

No wonder he didn’t see it, it’s on the Bottom Shelf…

Could be that Nelson was looking for the juice box he is familiar with.

I must ask my wife to find refrigerator items—even when the item is right in front of me.

I used it for a real purpose. When it was my turn to clean the office kitchen, I’d open the fridge door and stare blankly into it. I did it until I saw one of my female co-workers come by. She started to help me, and pretty soon six women are cleaning the kitchen, and I get lost!

My wife asks me to find things for her in the refrigerator or cupboard.