If I Can’t See You, You Can’t See Me

My sister wore glasses from a young age. I had better than 20/20 vision. Like younger siblings everywhere, I envied the things my sister had. Her pink bath towel was infinitely superior to my blue one. But it was the superpower conferred by her glasses that I especially wanted. By removing them, she told me, the world became blurry and she disappeared. No matter how hard I squinted my eyes, I could never make the world blurry. I couldn’t disappear.

Now some readers may be scratching their heads and wondering about the truth of her disappearing. You probably weren’t a younger sibling.

Pettigrew does this trick too. When I am putting food in his bowl, he knows that if he charges in, I will remove the bowl. I don’t like being crowded. Yet the fact that he will eat soon is irresistible. He can’t help himself. He creeps as close as he dares and then, at the last moment, turns his head. Not looking. Not seeing. Clearly, I couldn’t possibly see him either. 

Similarly, he turns his head when his walking partner Zadie greets us. Her over-the-top enthusiasm is, Pettigrew suggests, unseemly. He turns his head, or sometimes his back on the scene, waiting for her to calm down. If anyone should happen to walk by, Pettigrew would be invisible.

I could go on with other examples, but the instance that stopped me in my tracks was my husband.

We were talking about something he didn’t want to discuss at that moment, I no longer remember what, and, sure enough, as I looked over, he was gazing out the window.  Head turned firmly away. 

Pointing out that he was pulling a Pettigrew made us both laugh and, I hope, resolve whatever it was that I thought so important we discuss.

It seems the belief that “if I can’t see you, you can’t see me either” holds no matter what our age or species.