The one about the Hoe with the Weed and the Glasses

I took the boys to play outside in the yard today for the first time since before TS Fay showed up - about a month now. The ground was squishy and had that unmistakable rotting mud smell that you get in a Florida swamp, but the ground was firm enough that the boys could play. I took the opportunity to grab the hoe and go to town on all the new weeds in our garden. People who say weeding is gratifying aren't standing in a bug-filled bog when it's 94 degrees in the shade. But I'm still clinging to the pathetic hope that something will grow in this garden and I figured that all the grass and weeds sprouting up can't be helping things.

I kept my two junior gardeners on the other side of the garden fence for fear they'd mistake one of the sad little plants clinging to life for a weed and pull it out. So I hopped in the garden and the boys played in the yard and periodically stopped to peer through the garden fence. I'm shuffling about hoeing and raking when Aidan leans into the fence and yells, "Hey mommy! Your glasses!" I turned around and sticking out of the ground between two limp pumpkin plants was indeed a well-worn mud-covered pair of expensive reading glasses.


This is funny because right before TS Fay hit I went into the garden to take pictures. When I got out there I noticed that I was wearing my reading glasses, so I slid them on the top of my head (you know that special place where old people often wear their glasses while complaining that they can't find their glasses). I can't take pictures while wearing my glasses so putting them on my head made more sense to me than coming all the way back inside. Next thing I know I felt them slide off the back of my head and then heard a little thud. I reached up and felt my head. No glasses. I looked at the dirt. No glasses. Had I imagined myself bringing the glasses out? Didn't I just feel them slide off? Was I going crazy? I searched and searched. I walked around in circles, but I didn't find them. I was starting to question my sanity - and so was Farmer B after I relayed the story to him.

Farmer B strode out to the garden to get them since he felt I must be crazy for saying they fell off my head and instantly not being able to find them. But 10 minutes later he came in and said "No glasses - you must not have brought them out there."

So my spare pair of glasses was lost. I felt sure they were in the garden, but since I couldn’t find them, I didn't know what to think. It seemed impossible that they could disappear in an instant. But disappear they did.

Oddly enough a similar thing happened once before. Way back at a previous job - about 7 years ago - I lost my glasses while sitting at my desk. I had them on and next thing you know they were gone. Not on the desk. Not on the floor. Just gone. I spent a week not being able to see the computer or any written documents so I sucked it up and went to Lens Crafters and spent $350 to get an identical pair of glasses. The day I showed up with my new glasses at work, I accidentally dropped a business card down the back of my desk. When I reached back to get it, I saw my missing glasses hanging on a cable behind my desk. So now you know why I have two pairs of identical glasses.

Or I should say "had" two pairs of glasses.

Yeah, I really can't make this stuff up.