My husband used to travel to Holland with a previous job. He was preparing for another trip and couldn't find his passport.
He didn't quite have the balls to accuse me of hiding it, but that's what his heavy sighs and mutterings were implying.
I asked him which bag he had taken with him on his last trip.
He said he'd looked in there three times, and IT ISN'T IN THERE.
I went to the cupboard and returned within one minute with his passport that I had retrieved from the bag that he'd looked in three times.
He didn't even thank me!
Another time, he wanted the keys to the lock for the outside electric sockets. He went off on one for about half an hour because he couldn't
find them, huffing, puffing and sighing each time he looked in another location I suggested, and constantly grumbling that he ALWAYS put them in the hook. That's where the keys are kept, so why would they be in any of the locations I suggested.
Eventually I had had enough of the huffing and huffing, and joined in the hunt.
The first place I looked was on the hook where he ALWAYS put them, picked them off the hook and asked if these keys that I'd found on the hook were the ones he was looking for.
His face was a picture, and all he could say was, "well they weren't there a minute ago".
Again, implying that I had moved or hidden them.
I've reached the conclusion that he (and likely it's a skill passed down to our son) just gets "item blindness", and literally just can't see things right in front of his face.
I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, as this skill also applies to things left on the stairs that are meant to go up to the bathroom, or clean washing that needs to go upstairs, or when a toilet roll has run out and needs replacing etc, etc, etc