Blinders

A few weeks/months/I don’t know how long, but it’s not the important part of the story/ ago, I rearranged my office. This meant, of course, that I had to unplug EVERYTHING – computers, cables, the printer, everything – and then, after the furniture had been moved and all of the electronics had been set in their new homes, plug everything back in.

This was not festive. It was one of those projects where you get halfway through and then really want to quit, but by then it’s too late and you just have to keep going.

Anyway.

After everything was back in its proper place and plugged in and … miracle of miracles … WORKING, I patted myself on the back and called it good.

About two weeks later I realized: I never plugged the printer into the computer.

Huh.

At this stage in my life, I don’t really misplace things. I’m very … specific … about where things live. So believe me when I say this: realizing that I didn’t know where the printer cable was? DID NOT SIT WELL.

Not even a little.

In my head, the printer cable had a very specific look: thick. Heavy. At one end, it would screw into the printer. On the other end, it would screw into the computer.

I had no cable that looked at all like that. Not one. Nowhere.

I was stumped. Stumped, and printer-less.

The search would go on hold, only to be resumed at frenzied, inspired moments.

No cable.

I did, however, keep coming across a USB cable in my travels. That’s awesome, I’d think, annoyed, glad I have this useless USB cable on my desk. Great. Fabulous.

And then, one day, I LOOKED at the printer. And the computer.

There wasn’t another port that would accept a cable that screwed in.

I looked at the USB cable.

I looked at the printer.

I plugged the USB cable into the printer. I plugged the other end into the computer. I plugged the printer in. It ran. I printed something.

And I felt like a MORON.

I had been looking for that damn cable for weeks. I had an idea in my head of what it SHOULD look like? And I was so committed to that idea that I kept ignoring the reality that what I really wanted? What I really needed? Was right in front of me for … well, for quite some time. I ignored it, because it wasn’t what I thought I was looking for.

But there it was.

I have the nagging feeling that this might happen more often than I’d like.