OK, so my life is definitely
unmanageable, weird, out of control, and downright silly.
Last night I was icing after doing my shoulder exercises.
I was stretched out on the bed with the ice pack draped
over my shoulder and after about 20 minutes I started to
fall asleep. Since I never fall asleep so easily, I
didn't want to get out of bed to put away the ice pack so
I flipped it up onto the top of the dresser. Where my
glasses were. Amidst the sound of loose change hitting
the baseboard radiator behind the dresser I heard a sound
exactly like my glasses hitting the wall. That got me
back on my feet pretty darn quickly.
Behind the dresser, I could see the
blue ice pack, the velcro thing I use to move my arm
around for the passive exercises, a whole lot of dust
(who vacuums behind the dresser? don't answer that), and
my glasses. Grrr. The dresser is heavy and I can't move
it using just my good arm unless I unload it.
Fortunately, I'm far enough along in the shoulder rehab
that I can take the drawers out and lower them down to
the floor (though I can't lift them back up). Emptying
the shelves is pretty easy. With stacks of t-shirts, the
sock drawer, the underwear drawer, and random stuff from
the top of the dresser piled up all around me I manged to
shove the dresser far enough away from the wall that I
can get my leg behind it and push from the hip. Man
there's a lot of dust.
Sneezing copiously, I grabbed the
ice pack with my reacher and found the glasses underneath
it leaning up against the radiator. The reacher grabbed
those handily too. The right lens is missing. That's not
surprising because it often falls out. The lens doesn't
really fit the frame in the first place and the frame is
held together with picture wire. I've been meaning to get
new glasses but with everything else going on in my life
and the fact that my prescription hasn't changed in 7 or
8 years it's been low on the priority list. The lens is
nowhere to be seen by flashlight and I can't move the
dresser any further without help. The lens has to be back
there somewhere. It can't have vanished without a trace
unless the laws of physics have been temporarily
suspended in my bedroom. If that's so then why couldn't
the law of gravity have been suspended on
my
birthday to keep my from
tearing my rotator cuff in the first place?
Figuring I could search more
effectively after a good night's sleep, I proceeded to
attempt to sleep. I may have slept a few hours. I'm not
sure. When morning comes around again, I open the
curtains (actually door cloths from Tibet) and the shade
so I can search with daylight. This is before breakfast,
before showering, before getting dressed, before making
coffee, basically before everything. There is no sign of
the lens.
Once I'd searched fruitlessly past
noon, I called Ned. He was on another call and promised
to call back. I started looking for the closest optical
shop on the Internet (getting a crick in my neck reading
the laptop screen without glasses). When Ned called back,
I still wasn't dressed, medicated, caffeinated, or fed.
He said he'd be right over so I threw on some clothes.
I'm sure getting dressed will help find it.
Ned moved the dresser further from
the wall, stretched out behind it on the floor, and ran
his hand under the radiator the whole length of the wall.
Besides skinned knuckles we got a small metal Buddha
statue, a carved wooden tortoise I brought back from the
Galapagos, a tiny wooden elephant that Joan-west brought
me from India, my lucky plastic Figment that my mother
gave me from Epcot (I brought it to a Red Sox game in
1986 and Ellis Burks hit a grand slam. For the rest of
that season I brought it to every game I went to. I
wonder how long it's been behind the dresser and if this
has anything at all to do with the ALCS.), a stick of
Spray n' Wash, about $2.00 in change, and a picture of
Nancy that I took about 7 years ago. Oh, and also a lot
of dust and some Chinese fortunes that I must have
thought were lucky. But there was no sign of the
lens.
I took the front panel off the
radiator, uncovering more dust, but no lens. Ned ran a
fork under the heating element. I speculated that it must
have gone down in back of the radiator between the
heating element and the wall. I couldn't figure out how
to take the rest of the radiator apart and Ned is not
real mechanical (audioanimatronic, yes but not
mechanically inclined). He refuses to look any more,
believing that the laws of physics have indeed been
suspended or some higher being has intervened and the
lens has vanished forever. He starts calling optical
shops and telling them my story. They all have the same
answer: they need the prescription,which I don't have,
and then maybe they can make the glasses in a week. Even
that "beep beep glasses in an hour place" says they can't
get me in for a new eye exam to get a new prescription
for some time. Ned wanders back to the bedroom and gets
down on the floor by the radiator with the fork and a
knife. I start to dial my opthamologist to schedule an
appointment as soon as possible. I've dialed all but one
digit when Ned yells "Get in here!"
Ned tells me to lift up the heating
element. I try and skin my knuckles. I have visions of
having to call a plumber to take the pipe apart. It's in
there, wedged up against the wall in the tiny space
behind the heating element. It's wedged good. "Fork!"
"Flashlight!" "Knife!" "Lift up the pipe!" This is like
ER except there's way more dust and we're on the floor
behind my dresser using kitchen utensils. "I've got it!
I've got it!" Ned exclaims as he pops the lens out of the
radiator with the fork. I start laughing hysterically and
can't stop. I pop the lens back in the frame, tighten the
picture wire kludge, and laugh all the while. We are high
the adrenalin rush and the feeling of having prevailed
over powerful forces. Though exactly how the lens managed
to wedge itself in that small a space on one bounce is
beyond me. We have done it!
Grocery shopping is an anticlimax
after the high of finding the lens. The weekly circular
advertised organic scallions for 50 cents a bunch only
there are no scallions in the produce department. A store
employee tells me "That's the trouble with organics,
sometimes they have it and sometimes they don't. Come
back on Saturday and if we have them then we'll give you
the same price." No place has scallions, organic or
otherwise, and we've forgotten the laundry. I've been
wanting my black jeans back for over a week so we leave
the groceries on the kitchen counter and go back for the
laundry. Reunited with my black jeans and seeing quite
well out of both lens of my glasses with not even a
scratch from either the heating element or the fork, I'm
almost OK with the lack of scallions.
Later on Ned calls back to tell me
he's still on a high from getting the lens out from
behind the radiator. Me too. Manic episode
anyone?
