There Are None So Blind as She Who Lets Hick See (Part 2)

As you may recall from yesterday, I spent Saturday morning L'Orealing my lovely lady-mullet, only to discover that I had a screw loose.

Anyhoo...I put those glasses on the kitchen counter and went to finish dyeing in the shower. Once out, I sought my little screwdriver, kept handy on the kitchen counter, since the little see-through packet also holds a mini magnifying glass, suitable for dating pennies. It was much easier than repairs at work used to be. Because I had my NEWEST bifocals there, and could actually SEE the tiny screw as I put the end of the screwdriver in the slot. THERE! All done!

I picked up the glasses to try them, and saw with horror that THE LEFT LENS WAS MISSING!

I'd screwed them up tight, but without a vital component. Which I hadn't even noticed was missing, even though you can clearly tell, in this picture I took before the turning of the screw.

What in the NOT-HEAVEN? I hadn't heard a lens clunk to the kitchen floor, like I always heard it hit the classroom tiles. I carefully retraced my steps across the kitchen linoleum, onto the living room carpet, over to HIPPIE. No lens! That was impossible. Lenses, like matter, cannot be created nor destroyed. That glass is ground at the optometrist's office, I bring it into the house, and it stays there, somewhere, unless I take it outside.

After much searching, bending down farther than I find acceptable in my life of leisure, I checked the one place left. The glasses case on the table beside the La-Z-Boy. THERE IT WAS! The lens was in the case, which I leave sitting open, merely resting the open glasses inside until needed.

I'D BEEN LAPTOPPING WITH ONLY ONE LENS IN MY GLASSES!

Well. That was embarrassing. It explained why I couldn't focus, and my vision felt 3-D-ish. But it also begged the question: "Why did the lens fall out when I barely use those glasses?" Of course there's a logical answer. And of course it involves Hick. Who mentioned a while back, when caught in the act, that "Sometimes I use them to look at my phone, if I've left my glasses on the bathroom counter."

Let the record show that Hick has a giant bowling ball head. A hereditary trait, passed on to my own young'uns, verified by my baby-birthing apparatus. Genius used to mention, if teased, "My skull is big because of my large brain, while yours, on the other hand, is empty." In fact, Hick's second son, The Veteran, had to have his Army helmet specially ordered, so massive was his noggin. The stretching of my glasses frames going on and off Hick's face every time he got a message on Facebook must have worked that screw loose, and the lens out.

Of course I had to confront Hick, when he came home for lunch before his reunion.

"When is the last time you used my glasses?"

"I don't know. A while ago."

"How could you let the lens fall out of my glasses and not tell me? I would have fixed them. I'm used to it. I thought I'd lost the lens for good. I looked EVERYWHERE! Then found it in the glasses case! And I thought my eyes had gotten really bad, because I was almost seeing double at my laptop."

"I didn't know it was gone!"

"Oh, sure. The whole lens is out. With the bifocal. And you think they work like normal?"

"Wait a minute. Which lens was it? The left?"

"Yeah. That's the only one that falls out. The left. Why?"

"Val. I'm blind in my left eye. So I wouldn't even notice."

Never mind.