We see what we want to see. What do you see when you look at these earrings?

They were commissioned by a woman who liked a bracelet I did, each section depicting a phase of life. These are called Work and Play. On the left, a couple falling in love and on the right, colleagues gathered to brainstorm ideas. But every single person who has ever taken the time to pick them up has seen elephants. Every. One. I made them. I know what they are supposed to represent. I do not see the elephants. My mom always nods and says, “look, honey, it does look like elephants.” No. No it does not. But there you go. We have a client who gives us chocolate bars every Tuesday, so a couple of weeks ago, I’m looking up milk chocolate in my Weight Watchers tracker. I find dark chocolate, low fat chocolate, unsweetened chocolate, everything but milk chocolate. Finally, there it is. Milk chocolate, 2 points for 2 ounces. Wow, not bad. I weigh one of the chocolate bars in the postal scale in our office and it’s an ounce and three quarters. Sweet! I eat the whole thing and track my two points. I repeat this for 3 or 4 days until the chocolate is gone. I am so happy! Until the next time I get on the scale. Huh. That’s odd. I gained a couple of pounds. That makes no sense! I was so good!!!! I shrug it off. One of those flukes in the weight loss game. Tuesday rolls around and oh, joy! It’s chocolate time. I grab a bar and as it’s hovering by my mouth, I think, “Imma check this in my tracker one more time. Just to be sure”. Yep, there it is. Milk chocolate, 2 ounces, 2 points! Oh. Hold up. That’s Milk, Chocolate, 2 ounces…WTF!?! Milk. Comma. Chocolate. Chocolate milk?!?! I’ve been looking at 2 ounces of @$^*%# chocolate MILK!? I would swear that comma was not there before! And who the hell drinks 2 ounces of chocolate @$”^* milk? I’m pissed. I’m muttering and swearing. I’m about to get all up in Weight Watchers face about this gross misrepresentation! When I finally wear myself out, I have to admit. I know how many points the &@$^*#ing chocolate is. I chose to see what I wanted to see. Cheap Chocolate. Now we can go through life seeing only what we want to, but the comma is there. Just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not gonna bite us in the ass. 

I like to think I’m as bright as the next person, but truthfully, I’m either a complete moron or someone is gaslighting me. Seriously. Something really ridiculous is going on here and it’s driving me a little crazy, which as anyone knows is not a long drive to begin with. WTF, people! Let’s just start out by saying I’ve lost two train tickets in three days. Not just dinky little metro cards. Oh no! Monthly train tickets. With a metro card. That cost $365.00. Every month. Every single month. Except this month. This month it cost me $969.00. Because did I mention I’ve lost two? The first one on February 1st. Yep. I used it once to get into the subway, and when I I turned my phone around to take the ticket out of the handy little pocket I keep it in? Empty. Gone. Vanished. Empty out my purse, but it is never gonna find it kinda gone. Do I cry? No. I’m gonna suck it up. It happens. So I shell out another $302.00; I’m saving $63.00 because they don’t sell the kind with the unlimited metro card in Port, I have to go into Penn Station for that. F#%@&^* that. I’ll take the one they got. So now I’m real careful. I move my phone into a more secure part of my bag. I’m super-cautious when using my phone, always checking that my new train ticket with the very limited metro card is in the handy little pocket on the back of my phone. Uh huh. And today, when I leave work and take my phone out of its new very secure part of my bag and check the handy little pocket on the back of my phone? Gone. Vanished. I’m thinking it just fell out of the handy little pocket and is at the bottom of the very secure part of my bag! Yes! I see it! Oh wait. That’s the expired one from January, cause apparently that one sticks to me like glue. Really. It’s kind of hilarious, no? Do I cry. Oh yeah. Big ugly tears. I go back to my office to see if I lost it there, but I don’t see it and I’m about to miss my train, for which I do not have a ticket, so I empty my bag. Again. Nothing. Well, not nothing, cause there’s that &$”%^*-&$@^#*ing expired ticket from JANUARY! So after my sweet hubby calms me down, I decide to go to Penn Station so I can get another monthly with an unlimited metro card, which as it turns out is a complete waste of time because they don’t sell them there either. “The only way you can get that is through Mail and Ride”, he says. “I know that”, I say “that’s where I got mine, but I lost it.” I don’t tell him I lost it twice. It’s too embarrassing. So I pay another $302.00, take my new monthly train ticket with a not unlimited metro card and put it in my wallet behind my drivers license. A very safe spot. Expect now that I have to take it out umpteen times a day, let’s take bets on how long it takes me to lose my entire wallet. Namaste. NAMASTE

carynjune