Looking for an object when it's right in front of you

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Don't you just hate it when somebody asks you to pass them a pen or something, and you're searching high and low for it, when it's literally right in front of you? It can be so embarrassing at times, especially when the other person is either laughing or getting really annoyed. Sometimes the object is in such an obvious place that the other person has actually asked me if I'm doing this delibrately.

Once at work a customer asked me to get something down from a shelf, and I was pointing to everything but the item she wanted. She kept saying, ''no - it's to the right from the one you're point at. No, up a bit. No, to the left....'' and it was so embarrassing. It's like the desired object practically disappears from my sight, like some words do with a Dyslexic person. This is why I dread working alongside customers, because of my stupidness. They laugh at me, then when they come back in the shop again they see me again, then start talking to me as though I'm really daft.

Does anyone else miss objects what are right in front of them? Is there a way I could spot the object quicker?

All the time
It's a pain especially if I'm in a hurry...for example, missed the bus because I was busy looking for my bus ticket card thing (don't know what they're called in english) when it was in my pocket the whole time.

Yes, this happens to me a lot.

Yes, I've done this since I was a kid. When I finally realize it was originally right in front of me I feel very stupid.

Me too. If I'm doing some DIY I often put a tool down and can't find it again only to discover after a few minutes that it was right in front of me all along.

Like walking around the house, back-tracing your recent path looking for the car key's

Only to discover them 10 minutes later in your hand

Or...finally giving up on looking for that cup of coffee you only thought you just poured

Only to find it on the icebox shelf beside the pie you got a slice of earlier


KNow.......I have Know Idea of what you are referring too

I am not very good at locating items, although I seem to be improving. This is why I like organised systems, as I usually does not require scouring a room for an item.

LOL! I do this aswell. My parents hate it. They are like IT'S RIGHT THERE! I'm like oh.

My mom used to say to me all the time "if it had teeth, it would bite." Now I say it to myself all the time and when I was 11 my grandmother used to joke about the item being invisible because it was there all of a sudden when I finally saw it was right in front of me. I also say to myself "Oh duh" because it was right there.

I thought this happened to everyone because I recall my mom saying it to my brothers too when they be looking for something and it was out in clear site and I still felt stupid for this when I thought I should have seen it because it was right there and hard to miss and I am always the one telling people about buildings, "You have to be stupid to miss it" when they are looking for a certain store or restaurant or telling my immediate family "You have to be Jeff to not see it" referring to my ex about when he thought I wanted him to cross the highway to get to the store from the gas station and didn't know there was a gas station there. If I did these errors, I'd be telling myself how dumb I was and a Jeff. But hey at least I can admit my own stupidity.

This is why my kitchen has to be perfectly tidy or it takes me 20 minutes to make a sandwich. "Where's the cheese? Okay, where's the knife? And the cheese went . . . who moved my bread?"

I just remembered that when I was in my teens and I couldn't find something (or it would be in literally the last place I was willing to look, or in the first place I looked but I missed it), I'd start looking for something else, fail to find that, and stumble across the thing I was really looking for much more quickly than usual.

I wasn't sure what to make of this phenomenon.

It's happened enough that I have set spots for everything and God help me if somehow it ends up somewhere else. My apt may not always be very neat (ok it's often downright messy) but I know where everything is. My problem is more one of forgetting to take something than forgetting/not seeing where it is. I've walked out the door at times without either my keys, wallet, or phone. I've developed a routine to make sure I have everything I need but if something throws that off I'm screwed. Last month one day it was actually cold enough to put a jacket on. Doing so has never been part of my routine though and it threw me off enough that I made it all the way to work before realizing I'd left my sidearm in my safe and just had an empty holster on my hip.