Claus and I have a running joke about him not being able to find stuff, even if in the most obvious place. And by "Claus and I," I mean just me.

We once, a long time ago, saw a single panel cartoon about this topic, in which the man had his head in the refrigerator, and there was only butter on every shelf. He was calling out to his wife, "Where's the butter?" (I can't even remember what cartoon this was, but if you have it, can you share it?) Butter has become my shorthand for obtuse male tunnel vision- sorry to ruin it for you, Butter.

Whenever I have to help him find something that is clearly marked or easy to find, I'll locate it for him and say, "It's right there. By the butter."

I read something about women having different vision or something or other, as the reason for this phenomenon: "Genetically, women have two X chromosomes compared with men's one. Among other things, this gives women a greater variety of cone-shaped cells in the eyes which, in turn, gives them superior colour vision. Women also have wider peripheral vision.

"As traditional nest defenders, women have developed brain software that gives them an arc of at least 45 degrees clear vision to each side of the head, and the same broad spectrum of vision above and below the nose. In fact, many women's peripheral vision is effective up to almost 180 degrees. In contrast, as hunters men have evolved a type of long distance `tunnel vision', allowing them to see accurately over longer distances, rather than like a pair of binoculars."

What all those many words really say to me is that being a wife means constantly finding stuff for your husband.

It gave him great pleasure the other day to return the butter-favor to me. I was looking in the tool chest for the tape measure, and couldn't see it. It was so manly in there my eye cones got all scrambled up and I couldn't separate out all the hyper-masculine forms.

"Where did the tape measure go?" I huffed.

He calmly poked his hand into the box. "Why, it's right here. By the butter."

Score for Husband.

Post script:

Thanks to reader Susan for finding the cartoon: