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It’s only natural that I have selective vision

June 27, 2025

My girlfriend sometimes gets frustrated that I don’t see things.

“Can you hand me the ketchup?” she asks from behind me as I stand in front of the open refrigerator doors. 

“We must be out,” I tell her.

“It’s right in front of you,” she responds.

I look all around and begin to move items but stop when she reaches around me and takes the ketchup bottle from the front of the middle shelf.

“Oh,” I mutter.

“Can I have the mustard?” she asks.

“I don’t see any,” I tell her.

“You’re holding it,” she says.

There is a perfectly simple explanation, a theory that I formulated years ago.

I call it the Lions and Tigers and Bears postulate.

Throughout human history, man had to fight off lions and tigers and bears – and lots of other big animals – to defend himself and the womenfolk. When you are fighting off wild animals, you are too busy to notice where the ketchup and mustard are.

It is only natural that men have selective vision. It is vital for the continuation of our species.

I feel confident in my logic.

I could test my hypothesis, using a control group and an experimental group. Then I could evaluate the results to see if they support or are inconsistent with my hypothesis. I could repeat the process, revising my hypothesis, if necessary, in the hopes of proving my theory.

But there has to be an easier way. I could get a federal grant so someone else could do the hard work to study my idea.

But when I called every science-based agency in the United States government that I could think of, no one answered. Except the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where, between sobs, an intern cleaning out her desk told me I was on my own. Then she slammed the phone down, an apparent sign that she agreed with me.

I was thrilled.

By default, this year I have a good chance of being the United States’ leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

I will now have to start working on next year’s Nobel contest. I have a theory about my selective hearing.

 

  • Working It Out is the reincarnation of a column by the same name that reporter Kevin Conlon wrote weekly for more than six years for the Cortland Standard newspaper, where he worked as city editor before joining the Cape Gazette staff. 

Kevin Conlon came to the Cape Gazette with nearly 40 years of newspaper experience since graduating from St. Bonaventure University in New York with a bachelor's degree in mass communication. He reports on Sussex County government and other assignments as needed.

His career spans working as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers in upstate New York, including The Daily Gazette in Schenectady. He comes to the Cape Gazette from the Cortland Standard, where he was an editor for more than 25 years, and in recent years also contributed as a columnist and opinion page writer. He and his staff won regional and state writing awards.

Conlon was relocating to Lewes when he came across an advertisement for a reporter job at the Cape Gazette, and the decision to pursue it paid off. His new position gives him an opportunity to stay in a career that he loves, covering local news for an independently owned newspaper. 

Conlon is the father of seven children and grandfather to two young boys. In his spare time, he trains for and competes in triathlons and other races. Now settling into the Cape Region, he is searching out hilly trails and roads with wide shoulders. He is a fan of St. Bonaventure sports, especially rugby and basketball, as well as following the Mets, Steelers and Celtics.