"A Terrible Attitude (And The Terrible Toll That It Takes)"

I have a bad attitude about things. 

(As if revealing clues had not seeped out over the years.)

But I have an even worse attitude about this.

Anything I drop on the floor, I am convinced, before even looking, that I have no chance whatsoever of finding it.

That is just how it is.  A pill, a button, a cornflake – slips out of my hand, or escapes my cushiony lips?

Gone.

Though I make a perceived effort to find it, deep down, I know the fallen item has gone to a parallel universe and will never been seen here again.

Except if someone else finds it, which they often do, with minimal effort or delay, leaving me appreciative, surprised, and yes, awkwardly ashamed.

It is not a directly visual issue.  My “Failure to Find” is due to a chronically terrible attitude, my brain telling my eyes “It’s gone” and my eyes saying “Okay.”  I am not exaggerating for stylistic intent.  Over the years, things drop to the floor, and I instantaneously disappear.

Recent simmering example:

I am standing in the bathroom, late at night, nobody else is awake.  I cup my hand underneath, pointing my eye towards the middle of my palm.  I make the appropriate tug.  My released contact lens bounces off of my hand, and

“Into The Void.”

Few things are sadder than watching a man with a terrible attitude, searching for a thing he is thoroughly sure he is not going to find.  I mean, you try… like a man who believes that he actually has a chance.  But the salvaging attempt lacks… everything that will help you ultimately succeed.

Dropping to my knees, I scour the bathroom floor, one octagonal tile fragment after the other, watching my step, because recovering a crushed lens is as bad as not recovering one at all.  Maybe worse, because you were frustratingly “that close.”

If appears that my lens is not on the floor.  Nor is it on the two small mats, which I shake vigorously, hoping the freed lens will “plink” happily onto the tile. 

Trying to try, I expand the scope of my search, based on this “Rule of Lost Things” I have established, which is,

“If something is not where you think it is, look where you think it isn’t.”

I check the sink, the toilet.  I empty the wastebasket.  Unlikely?  Of course.  But when the entire prospect is doomed and if my lens was not where I thought it was, why not check where it may have ricocheted crazily after “The Bounce”?

The lens is not there.

It is a powerless feeling.  Although you unequivocally know that, in the paraphrased words of the “busted” philanderer in the old Myron Cohen joke, “Everything’s got to be someplace”,  there I am standing in the bathroom, trusting that physical principle but, due to my “downer” proclivity, unable to prove it correct.

Then, after fifteen minutes of going through the motions of searching, surprising myself and the odds,

I discover my lost lens.

Perched on the mat in front of the bathtub. 

(Which retroactively makes sense, as the errant lens made no sound when it landed, which I had ascribed to its silent transition to “The Mysterious Place That It Went.”)

I am happy, relieved, and most importantly, delighted I will not have to confess to a beleaguered spouse that I had lost my lens.  (Or even worse, having her find it later in ten seconds.)

Expanding the context beyond a guy who can’t find things that fall down:

As eyes that believe they won’t see something won’t.

Minds that believe they can’t do something can’t.

Minds that believe they can’t do something

can’t.

(Or, more accurately, can, but the onerous burden's considerably greater.  Think of a ship, traveling with its anchor still down.  Think how much easier it would be if it wasn’t.)
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Birthday Greetings to my brother.  The funniest person I know, and that others know as well.  Wishing you big laughs for years to come.  Under "Funniest Guy Around", check out his picture in the Canadian dictionary.

Happy Birthday, Bro.

And many healthier more.