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.