Today was one of those really strange days. The weather is squirrelly (or, as it is said around here, ’skroilly’): sunny and warm in the morning, turning to November around noon, then windy and sunny in the afternoon. Then, to top it off, my glasses broke (Bad News).
Not just the usual missing screw (that sounds dirty, doesn’t it?) or lense popping out, but the fram actually broke. Right where the metal piece across the top meets the nasal arch, it snapped. My lense made a wonderful sound (almost like fine crystal) as it hit the floor in my office (I use glass lenses (with lined bifocals (I tried the no line things and they made me feel ill)) as plastic ones get shredded in the dust and ashes of wildland fires).
Luckily, my optometrist has Sunday hours. I called my wife and asked her to meet me there with money. I filled out a leave slip. I figured out how to cover what I was supposed to do that day. I drove down (wearing my prescription sunglasses) hoping that they had a frame my lenses would fit into (otherwise, there goes a big chunk of my ’stimulus’ cheque) in stock. The young lady was very helpful. And she found a frame (a mid-priced frame, at that) into which my lenses fit (Good News). The frame she found was damaged, so tomorrow I go back to get the lenses put in (assuming the new frame (matching the damaged one she found) comes in).
Then she said something that floored me: “Remember to thank God tonight. He made sure these frames were here.”
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Bad News)
Here I was about to thank her for being able to eyeball the shape of my lense and find a frame to fit. Or maybe quick thanks to the frame company which, rather than completely redesigning the frame, just changed the temples. Or a quick thank you to slow stock turnover. Silly me. I should have been thanking an imaginary bronze-age deity. I’d bet dollars to donuts that if no frame to fit was there in stock, she wouldn’t have blamed God. Oh, no. She would have blamed the supplier, the manufacturer, her boss, or even the one who orders the frames.
What the hell is wrong with people? Can’t anyone take credit where credit is due, or blame where blame is due? Have we become a nation of conservative politicians?
