Missing things in plain sight

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A while back, My mom and I visited the drive-through at a local fast-food place. As we sat in the car looking at the menu, we had the following exchange (paraphrased):

Her: Take a look at the combos. What does it say?
Me: <squints and starts reading them off the combo menu board>
Her: No, the $3.99 one. In the middle.
Me: Where? I don't see any $3.99 combos.
Her: No! The one that says "combos" in big giant letters!
Me: <scans board again> OH!

So yes. I do have the problem.

Doesn't this happen to everyone, Aspie and NT?

Happens to me all the time. I would suspect it happens to us more due to hyperfocus and executive function issues.

This happens to me in the workshop all the time. I can set a tool down in front of me and later on when I need it. I find myself looking for frantically in spite it being right in front of me. I overlook things in the shop all the time.

Happens to me a lot, my daughter's gotten really frustrated with me because she'll ask me to get something for her, and I won't see the object in question, even though it was right where she said it was. And since I sometimes get a similar reaction from my mom, I've gotten to where I all but refuse to help them look for things or get things for them.

I definitely relate with this!

Yes when I am looking for something

I do this sooooo often, I just end up laughing at myself

Yep, happens to me all the time. If I can't find something after looking for it a reasonable amount of time, I assume I am just overlooking it. So I go away for awhile; when I come back later I can usually then find it right in front of me.

This usually happens to me when I am expecting one appearance, but the object is upside down or otherwise not a match. Once, making jewelry, I misplaced a small component when I left my bench for a moment. After looking for it for 20 minutes I gave up and started making another. After another 20 minutes, I was at the same stage, and had to leave the bench, so I wanted to set the thing down where I couldn't miss it. Since it was so small, I thought that a bottle top made a fine stage for it. I was right - the first one was there too.
I'm not the only one. I was late to the only family meeting I've had in a decade because my girlfriend had put her car keys in the refrigerator,

This happens to me all the time. It hurts me and makes me feel bad because I really want to help those who matter most. I wish I could correct this problem. People say, "You don't want to do this." That hurts, because I want to very much.

Is there help for this?

Sometimes I have good luck by searching with a flashlight, even in a reasonably well-lit room. Most recently, using it produced a shadow cast by a small white item where I'd left it on a white table, saving many hours. Another trick is the search grid. Scan an area like an old TV camera, line by line, and identify every object that shows up.
I have also had trouble over my eyes getting older. I started leaving hair in the shower, etc. because I just didn't see it, and had to extensively revise my workshop techniques.

I'm pretty religious about "a place for everything,and everything in it's place," for this very reason. Once something is out of place, it may be weeks before I run across it again, even though I've walked past or stepped over it a dozen times while it was "missing."

Seems no matter how thoughtfully I choose a spot to store something, once a certain amount of time has passed since I put it away, I can't remember for the life of me where I stashed it. Maddeningly, I will often have a clear picture in my mind of where it ought to be, but still continue to overlook it, or eventually discover it in the most logical place I should have been thinking of, but didn't.

When someone else asks me to get something, I also have the problem of being blind to it, if it doesn't quite look like I think it should, whether it's a different color, or even turned upside down, or sideways to the way I'm used to picturing it.

It reminds me of one of the tests the psychologist put me through when diagnosing my autism, in which you're supposed to take these white blocks with bits of red color on them, and reassemble them into the designs shown in a picture. It ought to be ridiculously simple, but I was so flustered by the fact that he was standing there watching me, with the timer ticking, that the timer ran out and I hadn't completed a single one of them. I felt like an idiot. if I'd been alone in the room, I could have done them all in a matter of seconds.