Everyone who wears spectacles occasionally misplaces them, do they not? And then they eventually find them a few minutes, perhaps even an hour or so, later.
(I always wear contact lenses when going out, having ever been the 'vain' sort. Indoors alone I have to resort to glasses).
Imagine, then. I was watching the BBC 6 o'clock national news on Friday 7th August - I need specs to watch TV, especially for when any captions or printing appears. I put the specs down on the settee beside me to go to (I can only think), the kitchen as the bulletin was coming to an end, before returning to then watch (as is my daily wont) the ITV 6.30 news - and, being the news-junkie that I am, always followed by Channel 4 News at 7, before retiring most evenings. Anyway, on coming back from the kitchen the specs are not there - and now twelve days later, still not found them! I've turned the place upside down, and not just the area where I sit to watch TV, but the few other rooms as well, including bathroom. In a single person's apartment there are only so many places one can go!
Maddening? You bet! - and more than! For the last week and half, right until yesterday, had to make do with an old, scratched (hence making all viewings fuzzy) pre-present-prescription pair.
The silver lining, if it can be so called, is that by sheer chance yesterday I had an appointment at the opticians to collect a new pair with updated prescription for which I was measured at the beginning of this month. That really was some stroke of luck. These new specs are fine. I can watch telly again. But until I can find that missing pair (to keep as a spare, just in case.........) I won't be able to settle. Where the hell are they? Soon I'll be reduced to threatening the cats that if they don't tell me where they've hidden them there'll be no more treats!
THERE you are! Good to hear from you. I have joined the group of people needing reading glasses and having several pair stashed about the house.
ReplyDeleteBeing short-sighted I've never needed reading glasses at all to read - at least until now when the optician said that with my encroaching cataracts [both eyes] and my increasing fatigue with reading I ought to have glasses to read even though it seems I may not actually need them. So yesterday I got a pair for the first time, together with my new distance specs, and it's the reading glasses I'm now wearing which makes typing on this laptop that bit easier. I'd now better not misplace these as well!
DeleteI wear mine almost all the time and only take them off when I sleep, so they stay in the same spot.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a chain to hold them around your neck ???
I tried for a time with a 'shoe-lace' type attachment to go round the neck, Bob, but soon got tired of it. Maybe it's time to re-consider.
Deleteyep, the pussies hid them. did you check the couch cushions? RTG has at least 6 pairs of reading glasses about the house and in the car. he buys them from amazon.
ReplyDeleteYes, all checked, W.Q. I can only think that they've slid down between some magazines or CDs or something - so why haven't I found them? - OR I absent-mindedly put them in a side shorts pocket though insecurely [which I've been known to do] then gone to the kitchen, and while putting something in the rubbish they've just fallen out and gone into the garbage. I don't REALLY think that's what's happened but it's not completely implausible and I can't think of much else. However, my suspicion is that they're still here SOMEWHERE.
DeleteBuying from Amazon? Had no idea one could. How does one get the prescription right, I wonder. Will investigate.
I am constantly misplacing my glasses. I only need them for reading, so when I'm really stumped I just grab one of the 8 pairs of pharmacy glasses I've picked up at different times. My glasses are wire rimmed with the lightest most flexible frames I've ever had. When they fall, they don't make a sound. I've missing stepping on them many times. The cats have never stolen them.
ReplyDeleteI ask myself what's the longest one of your pairs has been missing, though I guess there were times when you've lost some for good - and with so many around you're not too bothered when a pair goes walkies. I think I'll have to follow in your footsteps in having more than you need at any one time - though I'll be treading warily!
DeleteOh the lost glasses! I feel for you Ray. Mine were bifocalish except for the computer.
ReplyDeleteBut last year I needed surgery to remove both of my cataracts, et voila! My ophthalmologist performed some kind of magic and now glasses are a thing of the past.
No more putting my computer glasses on top of the other onesones and vice versa. And the number of times I lost the blasted things...
So I wish you well, Ray. May you find your old ones and never ever lose the new ones.
I'm told, Rozzie, that my eyes are not yet in such an advanced cataract-deteriorated condition to have the operation[s] done on our National Health Service, but after another year they could well be, so that's what I'm waiting for - and not without some nervousness - though I've heard so many praises for after it's been done, to which I can now add your own. In the meantime I'll have to be ever so careful to keep hanging on to these specs I've got. They certainly don't come cheap.
DeleteThanks for your thoughts.
It is so frustrating isn't it! I have had things appear to disappear and you just can't work out how that can be possible. I used to wear contact lenses for short sight but I too always had glasses for at home. Since lock-down started I have stopped wearing contact lenses and have now got used to full time glasses. In recent years I have become long sighted too.
ReplyDeleteI once came out of the bathroom and put my glasses on the end of the bed to pull clothing over my head and then found them vanished. I too searched high and low becoming ever more frustrated. Turned out in the end that I must have flicked them with my clothing and they landed behind the full length curtains, out of sight. I try to be more careful now.
Good to have you back.
I only wear contacts when going out, so these days it means solely for shopping - further meaning that most days I don't wear contacts at all, perhaps only 2 or 3 times per week, and that for only an hour or so.
DeleteHowever, if there's one thing even worse than losing one's specs it's losing a lens, something that's so easily done - as well as expensive, as I can vouch for perhaps the dozen or more times I've lost one over the 50 years that I've been wearing them.
Yes, it's odd how a mere unthinking casual flick of one's clothes or a blanket, curtain etc can have such serious consequences as losing one's spectacles, and only then do you realise what an absolute necessity they are.
I'm extremely near-sighted, so like you, I don't need them for reading, but I need them to watch the television. My problem is, I lay them down, and then when I need them, I literally can't see them unless I'm only a few feet away. I've been known to walk past them three times before I get close enough to see them. I need to get a pair that's neon orange or some bright color so they don't blend into the furniture.
ReplyDeleteCan't say I've had that particular problem [yet], Sadie, though I come pretty close. Sometimes I have to get a torch so I can look for light glinting off them, which is near enough like you.
DeleteAren't we the sorry pair? :-)
are you familiar with Jethro Tull's "the hare who lost his spectacles" ?
ReplyDeleteNo. 'fraid I've not heard of it - and to say that I'm 'perplexed' would be accurate. Tried 'YouTube' but can't find a clip of the 'song' which isn't drowned out by the accompaniment. I'll persist.
DeleteThe lyrics: The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles
ReplyDeleteJethro Tull
This is the story of the hare who lost his spectacles.
Owl loved to rest quietly whilst no one was watching.
Sitting on a fence one day,
He was surprised when suddenly a kangaroo ran close by.
Now this may not seem strange, but when Owl overheard Kangaroo whisper to no one in
Particular,
"The hare has lost his spectacles, " well, he began to wonder.
Presently, the moon appeared from behind a cloud and there, lying on the grass was hare.
In the stream that flowed by the grass a newt.
And sitting astride a twig of a bush a bee. Ostensibly motionless, the hare was trembling with
Excitement, for without his spectacles he was completely helpless.
Where were his spectacles?
Could someone have stolen them?
Had he mislaid them?
What was he to do?
Bee wanted to help, and thinking he had the answer began:
"You probably ate them thinking they were a carrot."
"No!" interrupted Owl, who was wise.
"I have good eye-sight, insight, and foresight. How could an intelligent hare make such a silly mistake?"
But all this time, Owl had been sitting on the fence, scowling!
Kangaroo were hopping mad at this sort of talk.
She thought herself far superior in intelligence to the others.
She was their leader, their guru.
She had the answer: "Hare, you must go in search of the optician."
But then she realized that Hare was completely helpless without his spectacles.
And so, Kangaroo loudly proclaimed, "I can't send Hare in search of anything!"
"You can guru, you can!" shouted Newt.
"You can send him with Owl."
But Owl had gone to sleep.
Newt knew too much to be stopped by so small a problem
"You can take him in your pouch."
But alas, Hare was much too big to fit into
Kangaroo's pouch.
All this time, it had been quite plain to hare that the others knew nothing about spectacles.
As for all their tempting ideas, well Hare didn't care.
The lost spectacles were his own affair.
And after all, Hare did have a spare a-pair. A-pair.
Thanks for your trouble, Debby. I'd completely forgotten about this.
DeleteSo, having read it and then watched two representations on YouTube, on both those I chose to watch it's a pity that the music accompaniments too often drowned out the narration, so just as well I knew what it was about. I'm wiser now, thanks.
And btw, those specs of mine never turned up though I'm willing to bet that they ARE still here somewhere.