There is a person in every home who knows where EVERYTHING is. In my house, that person is me. I don’t remember applying for this position, there was no interview, no discussion about salary or benefits, I was just promoted somewhere along the way to Chief Finder of All Things.
“Mom, where’s my charger?” “Where are the scissors?” “Have you seen my sweatshirt or black Lululemon leggings?” “Nik, where’s the ketchup?”, “Nik do we have any more paper towels?”
“Where are my keys?” “Mom Where’s my water bottle?” Sometimes I’m also supposed to know what we’re looking for before I’m told what we’re looking for. The truly fascinating part is that approximately 87 percent of the time, whatever they’re looking for is exactly where I tell them it is.
“The ketchup is in the refrigerator door.”
“I looked. It’s not there.”
“It’s there.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Now I have to get up. I walk into the kitchen, open the refrigerator and there it is. The ketchup. Sitting in the refrigerator door. In its natural habitat. Exactly where ketchup has lived for the last 15 years. This is usually followed by some version of:
“Oh.”
OH?
I need more than “oh.” I just left what I was doing and traveled across the house to locate an object that was six inches from your face. At minimum, I would like a small ceremony.
And it’s not just my kids. This phenomenon crosses age groups, my husband can stand in front of the pantry and ask me where something is while actively looking at it.
“Where are the tortilla chips?” “Second shelf.” “I don’t see them.” “Left side.” “Nope.” “Behind the pretzels.”
Nothing. So eventually I walk over, reach my hand approximately four inches into the pantry and pull out the tortilla chips. At this point, I’m no longer a wife. I’m a magician. TA-DA.
What I really want to know is how moms acquired this ability. Did something happen biologically when we had children, along with learning how to function on very little sleep and developing the ability to hear a teenager quietly opening a snack wrapper three rooms away, did we also develop some kind of advanced household radar?
I know where everyone’s shoes are. I know which cabinet has the batteries. I know there’s one roll of toilet paper left upstairs. I know we’re almost out of dog food even when my husband tells me we need more dog food. I guess I am the grocery shopper too. Lucky me. I know there are three bottles of mustard in the refrigerator because everyone keeps telling me we’re out of mustard and buying more mustard. I know which drawer contains the tape even though nobody has put the tape back in the correct drawer since approximately 2019. I know where the Advil is, where the Band-Aids are, where the extra phone chargers are and where the random gift cards we’ll probably forget to use are hiding, and somehow everyone else gets to just…not know.
There’s also a very specific type of looking that happens in families. I call it Man Looking, although teenagers of all genders seem perfectly capable of it. This is when you technically look for something, but you don’t move anything.
You open a drawer, you stare into the drawer, you close the drawer. “I can’t find it.” I want to scream moooovvvveee things around… A search involves movement. Pick things up, look underneath them, open another drawer, consider that the item may have migrated since the last time you used it.
Use your investigative skills, pretend you’re on Dateline, Keith Morrison is standing behind you. You have to find the charger before the commercial break. I sometimes wonder what would happen if moms everywhere stopped answering the “where is it?” questions for one week.
Would our families adapt? Would they develop stronger visual processing skills? Would they finally discover the mysterious second shelf of the refrigerator, or would everyone just wander around their houses wearing one shoe, eating dry cereal because they couldn’t find the milk?
I have a feeling I know the answer. The funny thing is, someday I’ll probably miss some of it. There will come a time when fewer people are yelling “Mom!” from another room. The house will get quieter, everyone will know where their own chargers are because they’ll be in their own homes, and knowing me, I’ll probably get nostalgic for the days when everyone needed me to know where everything was.
Just not yet. Right now, I would like everyone in my household to try one revolutionary new strategy before asking me where something is, actually look, move the pretzels, check underneath the sweatshirt, open cabinets, open the refrigerator door and allow your eyes a few seconds to adjust to the unfamiliar terrain, and if you still can’t find it?
Fine, call me. I already know where it is.
Nikki Lanigan
Nikki Lanigan is a yoga, HIIT, and Barre instructor, she is also a Holistic Health Coach through Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Nikki is trained in Yoga Shred, Yoga Psychology, meditation, chakra balancing, and EFT/Tapping. She has done trainings with Sadie Nardini and Ashley Turner. She got her 200 hour yoga teacher training in 2017 at the Carrie Treister School Of Yoga. Nikki takes a holistic view of health, helping her students and clients reach a place of self-love not just through movement, but with mindset and lifestyle guidance as well. Nikki is also show prep writer for The McVay Media Show Prep and host of the podcast Fit, Fun, and Frazzled. Connect with Nikki on Instagram. www.instagram.com/nikkilanigan.yogaandwellness www.instagram.com/fitfunandfrazzledpodcast
