(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . My Invisible Trousers [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-11-25 This is a story about perception. But aren’t they all? My wallet went. missing this week. It had been several days since I needed to leave the house, so I just stashed it in my nightstand as I normally do, along the with keys. The keys came and went, but the wallet stayed. Or so I thought. My wife and I are old; we stay close to home for a number of reasons. But the chest bug that started coming on in both of us felt like no ordinary rhinovirus. And all our COVID tests had expired, I found. A trip to the pharmacy was required. So I masked up, reached for my keys and the wallet, and … no wallet. Which is to say, no driver’s license, no credit cards, no retiree ID card, no bank cards, no medical cards, no money, nothing. Forty years ago I could walk around with a driver’s license and cash, and maybe a checkbook. But now I need them all. My wife doesn’t drive. I wasn’t driving without a license. And my cash was in my wallet. First step was to ransack the house: all the usual places. In my old age I’ve taken to laying down small objects absentmindedly and “losing” them, which is bad. But I’ve also learned my body’s repertoire of independent habits. I may not remember putting something down, but I can guess where my body put it. Lost keys will be found most likely on top of the banister at the bottom of the stairs, possibly atop the washing machine on the landing. The wallet may well have been swallowed by the easy chair, or laid down next to the land line or on the dining room table; it and the keys may even be on the bed. The cell will be found on the small table outside the doorway to the kitchen. And then there’s the classic: becoming too distracted to remove personal items from my trousers before hanging them up for bed. Later you find some of them hiding among the shoes on the floor of the closet. I’m such a creature of unconscious habit, but at least I know me well. None of these strategies worked for me, not even after three or four repeats. I looked around outside; I have once before found my keys on the path to the compost heap, or my wallet in the garage on a cheap workout floor mat. I’ve found them on the floor of the car next to the driver’s side door, slipped from a pocket. But this time, nothing. It was late. I called a friend who offered to bring over COVID tests on the morrow, when I would confront the task of replacing every single card. I still didn’t want to, because it might not be necessary. I’d gone online and found nary an account touched. No strange payments or fund transfers of any kind. So the wallet might be here… somewhere. But where? The next morning, I tore my closet apart. I removed every pair of pants, every jacket, every shirt, everything with pockets that might hold a wallet … I laid them out on the bed. Nothing. I’d already done this search by feel, but now I had the clothes in front of me and was sure that I’d checked each one. And I found something. Or rather, I failed to find something. One pair of trousers was unaccounted for: gray cotton with a drawstring. My only gray trousers. They had gone invisible. I could not find them the closet, in the washing machine, the dryer, nor in the laundry bag. They did not hide, rumpled into a ball, under or inside any furniture , nor shoved into the space between the bed and the wall, or thrown on the bathroom floor behind the toilet pedestal. They could not be found in the garage nor the yard, though I couldn’t imagine walking back inside without them. It occurred to me that my lost wallet had snuck off inside the invisible gray trousers… somehow. Somewhere. What an evil conspiracy. But where? I had looked… everywhere. So I looked again. And again. Even in the bathrooms. We have two bathrooms, one with a long-unused shower. We hang wet, dirty towels or clothing from the curtain bar to dry before throwing them into the laundry hamper. And then we forget about them, usually; a whole squadron of orphan cloth bits hangs there most days. I looked up from searching behind the toilet — again —and suddenly the random pieces of hanging cloth resolved into…. my gray trousers. Invisible pants made visible by an eye at last turned receptive. I reached up and felt the familiar lump of my wallet in a back pocket. I remembered now. In a hurry I’d pissed into the toilet while standing up and had a, um, male accident. I’d stripped off my pants and thrown them on a hanger to dry. I took my keys with me, but apparently forgot the wallet. The incident vanished from memory and I “remembered” that my wallet was in my nightstand It’s pretty easy to think that you know what reality is… but you don’t. The mind’s eye can blind the real eye, and you don’t see what’s sitting there right in front of you. You make assumptions that filter the truth from your eyes, though it’s plain as day. Perception versus reality: the adventure continues. Without the quirks of human perception, of course, this selective blindness, I suppose that today’s style of extreme politics could not exist. Too bad, truly. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/25/2207953/-My-Invisible-Trousers?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/