I believe myself to an alert walker, practically a Sherlock Holmes in noticing everything around me.
How, then, do I account for the fact that I have walked past people I know dozens of times. If they didn't bark my name, I would have drifted right on past. "You looked like you were doing math in your head," they might say. "I almost didn't disturb you." Sometimes they introduce themselves, as if I hadn't recognized them and not that I was lost in thought. I have even stared right through my own husband.
This happens a lot, & yet it doesn't stop me from feeling very sure that I don't miss a trick.
My Uncle Earl always claimed to have his ear to the family grapevine so it was very sweet to surprise him on his birthday one year, & the next day surprise him again on his anniversary. Good old 'Earlock. I am, it seems, my uncle's niece.