Door Prize

A few weeks ago, I went through the laborious chore of choosing new eyeglasses. And that reminded me that if I were an optician, I would install a digital camera tethered to a computer monitor so that people can take photos of themselves and then see what they look like in new frames. Otherwise, one ends up in the undignified position of being a few millimeters from the mirror, squinting like an idiot, trying to discern if the frames are an abomination. It's not a good scene, and I often worry that I will end up looking like Woody Allen or Bono. Happily, I made a decision and was comforted by the thought that I would, for the first time in my life, have a back-up pair of glasses. Oh, the luxury.

Perhaps I was day-dreaming or maybe I was just walking like a bored automaton the next Thursday evening, still wearing the old frames. I headed down the hall to my evening class, about to turn left through the door when it happened. A door came flying open and smacked me in the face. My glasses shattered and landed on the floor in more than one piece. I had a searing pain in my head.

The dude who walked through the door, a little too aggressively, I would say, looked mortified. He helped me find the pieces and apologized. I thought about taking him down with a solid left hook, but my eyesight is so bad, I couldn't see more than a few inches in front of me.

Somehow, I managed to reassemble the frames, and if I didn't move my head, they would stay in one piece. After class, I found some glue at a nearby store and did a quick repair on a bench under a streetlight. I worried that a passing cop might think I was shooting up, 'cause I was hunched over and looking far too intense. Despite getting super glue on my hands, I managed to glue the glasses into one piece amd I cycled away.

Thankfully, I like the new glasses, which came in a couple of days later. I make sure that I keep well away from that door.

Technorati Tags: glasses, eyeglasses, doors, accidents