Susan Writes

Ruth, Lou, and David fastened seatbelts and settled in my van one afternoon recently. I said, “While you’re at mine and Pop’s house, please tell me if you see my red glasses.”

“Your what?” said David, age 12.

“My glasses. The ones with red frames.”

“You lost them again, Gran?” asked 10-year-old Lou.

“Not lost. Misplaced.”

“The same ones that Elaine (these Grands’ youngest sister) found in the grass in your yard?” asked Ruth, age 8.

“Yes, and someone found them in the creek one time. Was that you, Ruth?” I said.

“Yes, I think I did! On the bottom,” said Ruth.

“Wait,” said David, “you lost them in the grass and the creek? Why don’t you just wear them all the time like Mom does?”

I explained that I need glasses only to see something close. Not to see at a distance. “Don’t you have other glasses?” asked David.

Yes, I have two pairs I bought at the Dollar Store. “So, can’t you just wear them?” I explained that my red-framed glasses are prescription and made with better glass and I can see best with them and I rattled on about how frustrating it is to misplace them.

My Grands didn’t say a word. It was a case of information overload and it wasn’t my Grands’ problem. I wanted responses. “So, will you please look around for my glasses? I really need them,” I said.

Ruth looked out the van window, seemingly lost in thought. “Gran, I have an idea.” She paused. “Think real hard. Where was the last place you remember having them?” Spoken with inflection of someone who has heard this question many times.

So, later that day after my Grands left, I backtracked my morning steps. Upstairs in the green room where I typed on my laptop computer. In the bathroom. On the kitchen desk. The kitchen table. In the dirty clothesbasket in the laundry room. I pulled out every stinking piece of dirty clothes because I was pretty sure I had pushed my glasses to the top of my head before I put dirty clothes in the washer and took clean ones out of the dryer.

At suppertime, I shared my dilemma with Husband and how David thought I should wear another pair and Ruth’s insightful question. Husband smiled. That smile that meant ‘We’ve been here before.’ “Where have you looked?” he asked. I explained and named every piece of dirty clothes I touched.

After supper, Husband nonchalantly walked from the laundry room and laid my red glasses on the kitchen counter. “What?” I said, “I looked in there! Went through all our stinky clothes. Looked on the floor.”

“Did you look in the trash can?” he asked.

My Grands will laugh when I tell them about Pop’s discovery. And, someday I’m going to write a story from my glasses’s point of view. They’ll scream, “Don’t put me on top of your head. I don’t like falling in grass and creeks and trash cans!”

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Filed under: Everyday Life | Tagged: glasses, lost glasses |