There Are None So Blind as She Who Lets Hick See (Part 1)

Old glasses never die. They just get laid away. C'mon, glasses-wearers! Don't pretend that you chuck the old pair when you get new spectacles. What if you misplace the new ones, or your dad sits on them in the passenger seat of your car? Yes, that last one happened to me, when I was in my 8th year of teaching. It taught me to keep my glasses in the console, and it taught my dad to make his next pair of frames the kind you can twist seven ways to Sunday without breaking.

Anyhoo...I have glasses stashed all over the house. The two newest pairs, which I got a couple years ago, live in the kitchen and in my dark basement lair. The pair before them resides on the table beside Hick's La-Z-Boy. In case I'm not wearing my kitchen glasses on my head when I plop down on the short couch to share the mail with Hick in the evening. Or when I use my new laptop, HIPPIE, in the mornings while Hick is gone and I commandeer the La-Z-Boy. Of course the older prescription doesn't give me the clarity of the recent ones, but it's better than squinting and making out half the words.

Saturday morning, Hick was gone to set up his high school reunion. With him out of the house, I felt free to roam around while replenishing the hue of my lovely lady-mullet with L'Oreal Medium Brown. It's not like I was prancing around in my birthday suit. I was clothed in pajamas, with a towel around my shoulders. Rather than sit in the bathroom out of sight of Hick's judging eyes, I sat on the end of the coffee table at the front window, cruising the innernets with HIPPIE.

The hair dye always wipes off the earpieces of my glasses, but just in case, I use the pair from the living room on my dyeing days. I gathered everything I needed (remote control, water cup, cell phone, house phone, Puffs with Lotion [my nose runs after taking my morning medicine], and glasses). Putting my supplies on the coffee table behind me, and my glasses on my face, I sat down on the end, and flipped open HIPPIE.

That was strange. I had a hard time seeing the screen and keyboard. I felt like I was living in a 3-D movie. "Huh. I guess this prescription really IS getting out-of-date." It wasn't too bad. Better than no glasses at all. Besides, I didn't want to go to the kitchen for my newest glasses. When I finished dyeing, I took off my glasses, grabbed a Puffs, and wiped off the earpieces.

It was then that I noticed I had a screw loose.

This was the worst pair of glasses I ever had. No matter how much I tightened that screw, it always fell out. Not all the way out. It stayed in the little cylinder, but was detached from the frame that held the lens. When I wore them at work, taking them off and on my face several times per class period, I could get by about two weeks before I had to tighten the screw. If I forgot, the lens might fall out at a most inopportune time. Meaning in front of the students, giving them a respite from my droning while I made repairs. Can't have that!

CONCLUSION tomorrow...