This phrase is used within MK’s family:

The phrase is used when someone is extremely lazy when looking for something that is often in plain sight, and can be both a verb (to Willie look), or an adjective (he’s a Willie looker). If someone can’t find their cellphone while it’s sitting in plain sight on the kitchen table, they would have “Willie looked” and be a “Willie looker.”

This phrase arose within MK’s family, but who came up with the term specifically is unknown. One of MK’s nephews, Willie, was a notoriously bad looker, habitually being found with only one sock on. When trying to find his other sock, he would ask others for help looking for it, only for the sock to be a couple feet off to the side in the middle of the floor. While this sock may have been in plain sight to most people, Willie possessed an uncanny ability to be blind to anything they needed to find at all times. MK and her family would call him the “worst looker”, but it slowly morphed into “Willie looker” and expanded to anyone who couldn’t find something that wasn’t even hidden, being seen as an insult to their pride.

This phrase is intrinsically linked to MK’s family and has become one of the most commonly used phrases in their lexicon. What makes this phrase important is how it became the bridge to many other folk expressions, like proverbs and folk gestures that would come as a result of someone Willie looking. Should someone have been caught Willie looking, one could expect at least one mini lecture, complete with a proverb or two about putting effort in before asking others to help you, and became an important symbol about growing up in MK’s household. While asking for help was ok, one could only ask for help with anything after really putting effort in and failing first. If one asked for help without trying first, you were seen as lazy and less deserving of the help of others. This lesson about independence was drilled into all of the children in MK’s extended family and stressed an important family value for those that were on the receiving end of a Willie Looker lecture.