A Syndrome

Big R. and not-so-little R. left this morning to go camping and whitewater rafting. I steeled myself for a couple of hours of running around despite all my best efforts to pack and prepare extensively on Thursday and Friday. I know this routine because my little brother is the most neurotic camping-trip preparer in the universe. And okay, in our family I'm the neurotic one.

Big R., though, drives me crazy with something my mother calls (and we lived with my parents for a year, so she knows) "Don't I Have A Wetsuit?" Syndrome. R. has such an optimistic nature, and a vivid imagination, and loses things so frequently, that if he doesn't own something he needs he quickly convinces himself that he does own one and just hasn't located it.

"Where's the groundsheet?"
"What groundsheet?"
"The groundsheet that goes with the tent. You have to put a groundsheet down to keep the damp from seeping through."
"We don't have a groundsheet. We've only used this tent on the beach up 'til now."
"Are you sure? I think we have a groundsheet...now where would it be?"

*Edited at 9:20 to say: The above exchange did not happen exactly as written, but it could have. I'm just trying to describe the syndrome, but I had to clarify in the interest of honesty.