The other night my husband shouted from the kitchen, “Hon, where’s the tartar sauce?”

“In the door of the fridge, top shelf.”

“I looked. It’s not there.”

“It was when I was making dinner.”

“Not there. I checked.”

“Trust me. It’s there.”

I hear the refrigerator door open a third time.

“Nope, not there.”

I sigh, open the refrigerator door and pull the tartar sauce from its place of honor… on the right side of the refrigerator door, top shelf.

“The label’s different,” he mumbles as I hand it to him.

I can hear many of you women nodding your heads in agreement. I bet there are few women who haven’t had this experience. It goes along with the chapters on “Why Real Men Don’t Ask for Directions,” “Why Real Men Don’t Use Calendars,” and “Why Real Men Don’t Tell You Your Hair Looks Like It’s Been in a Cotton Candy Machine.”

I finally realized that it all comes down to evolution. You know… buffaloes and berries.

You see, waaay back at the dawn of humanity, men were hunters of very big, roving things (Buffaloes), and women were gatherers of very small, stationery things (Berries).

Basically, that explains it all (including differences in communication styles).

Don’t believe me? Well, think about a group of hunters out on the plains, stalking a herd of wild buffalo that will provide food and clothing for their clan for weeks to come. They follow the herd for miles upon miles, days upon days. They identify their target and fan out, waiting for just the right moment to strike.

Now imagine the guy who turns to his fellow hunters and shouts, “Hey, guys, what direction do you think they’ll move next?”

He’d, no doubt, be victim to the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune.

If you find it hard to understand why your guy can’t seem to find household items that seem to be staring him in the face, it helps to understand that the fine-tuned, small-object “search and secure application” has become a recessive trait, bred out of Male 6.0. It also explains why guys will notice any high-end sports car anywhere on the road, no matter how far away, but won’t notice when you’re missing one of the earrings you had on when you left the house.

Yup. Good thing those buffalo never figured out how to disguise themselves as berry bushes.

P.S. Can’t you just hear the woman in the photo saying, “There! There’s the tartar sauce!”

Photo Credit: Lasceaux Field Museum