In Plain Sight

I have a friend named Tom who has a unique ability. From time to time, I find myself in the car, on a little bit of a road trip with him. He happens to have a couple of good fishing holes south of the border. I'm talking the Nebraska border. But Tom has this keen sense about spotting certain wildlife, and this is done even while driving. I can be staring out the window, gazing off into a corn field, and Tom will blurt out 'deer', or 'turkey'. I'm in a state of confusion and asking, "Where, where"? Then the deer, or turkey, or pheasant, or ground squirrel, or dragonfly, come into plain? view. I asked him once, how he has such a keen eye for wildlife? First, he grew up in the country, and has trained his eye to spot it at a young age. He said once he exits the city, he has an image in his mind, and any movement, or slight discrepancy on the horizon, triggers his response. I've tried to pay attention to this while driving on road trips, but growing up a city kid, I'm not sure what a deer looks like. Of course, this happens to me other than excursions through the countryside. I can open my tool box, and stare for three minutes, looking for a tool hidden in plain sight. It happened to me this morning. I opened the fridge looking for jelly, and stood there, just like my kids do, staring into a camouflaged environment, while letting the 'cold' flow freely out of the appliance, thus warming my food, and cooling my house, all while running my electric bill up. So I finally found the jelly, hiding somewhat behind the eggs, sitting very still, hoping to not be noticed. But since I've been training my mind and my eye, and the two are now in 'sync', there was no way it was going to escape my notice. OK, admittedly, I still have a lot of fine tuning. I think some people just have 'it', and some people (me) don't. I'm just fortunate I've never challenged Tom to a game of 'slug bug'. Chances are, I would probably notice the deer.