I should have gone to Specsavers

I have a theory. When you're looking for something that you've just lost or you are very familiar with your brain forms a picture of the object in one particular orientation and you look for that, possibly discounting other orientations. Another person, going only on your name for the object, will widen the window visually and is more likely to spot the object.

I know that when I've lost something I often can't see it if it's not in the orientation I imagine.

Bill

My late wife always said that men were hopeless at finding things.

I have surprisingly good hearing, I find it best to try and listen to where dropped screws etc go ...

Works both ways. A number of times my wife has lost a "butterfly" clip from an earring as she tries to push it on. She usually finds it, but has called on rare occasions to help. I have found it a few times (not where she thought it had dropped. The most awkward one to find was in the sliding track of the wardrobe door, under the door!). Sometimes neither of us can find it, but it turns up days later.

Actually Adam experienced a rare example of interdimensional travel. It's controlled by imps who delight in driving you mad when what you are looking for is no longer on this earth, but a parallel one. When you've given up, and asked someone else to help, they put it back in the place you looked for it half a dozen times for the other person to find.

Thats why god put hair around it.

I have a dark blue carpet and it amazing where little black screws end up.

Its the opposite here. Her in drawers often goes into a strop because her (insert lost thing here) has completely disappeared despite having searched everywhere she had been.

I quietly wander around the usual left item places and 9 out of 10 times hand it to her asking, Is this it?

Do I get a thank you? No, its usually "well you must have put it there"!

Mike

I agree:-)

The clip was not on the floor on Friday.

Dropped peas on patterned mats are a problem, even when there is no green in the mat. And rubbers bounce in unpredictable directions.

Well they never, ever look at the manufacturers instructions :-)

They normally deliberately avoid helping you find something 'lost' even if they know exactly where it is, preferring the well-worn phrase "It's where you last put it dear"

"Magnet fishing" ??? (for ferrous missing objects).

Simply getting down on hands and knees and sweeping one hand from side side in an arc, while slowly moving forward helps to find some small objects.

Provided they are small and not likely to get broken, I find not trying to catch them, which usually knocks them in an odd direction, but simply stepping back watching where things go as they fall works most of the time.

ARW wrote on 10/04/2022 :

A bright torch, with a sharp beam - lay it on the floor and sweep it around. Any small item will cause a large shadow.

Colin Bignell presented the following explanation :

That never ends well, when you are the top of a ladder.

Mike Rogers formulated on Sunday :

In the peak of the covid lock in, I ordered an expensive proper pair of hairdressers scissors. Between delivery and them needing to be first used, they disappeared. I've searched several times for them since then

- zilch.

Is this related to the problem I have when having to go to the supermarket and can't find the item I went there for despite having passed the shelf twice or even been standing at it when I've asked for help?

If there is anyone in attendance when I enter I usually ask where an item is and often I'll be escorted to the exact location - saves so much time and frustration.

So have I. You did not by any chance end up with cabbage instead of egg boxes the last time I saw you.

I had that in Aldi last week. But I'd seen a helpful deputy manager who took me straight there.

And quite right too. He's my son.

The best of ours get real radical and have an app for your smartphone which tells you the aisle. It would be better if it told you the side of the aisle and where along the aisle it was too.