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9:33 a.m. - 2005-03-07
Spanking the moose
I would like to thank crazy scientist man...

Yo. I broke my glasses. Stepped right on em'. Mother efffer. Grrrrr. I've had these babies for like four years. I got them in Athens from a REALLY old man who gave me my eye exam and showed me how to put in my contacts, but he was almost blind himself. That was a bit odd. These glasses have been lost and found, dropped, sat on, stuck in couch cushions, left in states I've only visited and been quite hardy and reliable in the process. The lenses aren't even scratched. Whatever lenses these are, like titanium-steel-diamond nitrate or whatever...they're awesome. Like, almost magical. But this weekend, my recently pedicured foot found them and ended their notably long history of excellence. (I think I pulled that last bit there from my high school principal's speech at my graduation.)

SO the ear pieces or "temples" as I now know they are called by those in the know, broke in half. My dear, sweet father tried to fix them and came up with about 10 different ways to jerry-rig them involving string, glue and a hacksaw. I gently pried them from his eager hands and drove, squinting, to Lenscrafters.

It was here where I nearly committed a felony. That felony would be strangling the woman behind the counter. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: Hi. I need to have these repaired.

Her: OH, did you purchase them here?

Me: No, but it says on the sign you repair glasses...I guess it just costs more if they aren't from here. Right?

Her: Welllll.....we don't really repair glasses.

ME: Excuse me?

Her: Well, I mean if the screw comes out, we can put that back in but we don't have any parts for glasses.

(At this point, I slowly, dramatically make a show of scanning the room, taking in the legions of pairs of glasses...enough to outfit the American Troops in Iraq...and the LABORATORY in the back with dozens of glasses technitions and tools and God knows what...and look back at her raising my eyebrows.)

Me: You don't have any parts for glasses?

Her: Nope.

Me: OK, fine. I guess I need a new pair. Can you just make me a pair with this same perscription?

Her: OH, no. We can't tell what the perscription is by looking at the lenses accurately enough. You'll need an eye exam. Unless you have the number of the doctor who last checked your eyes, it's been in the last year and he can fax us the perscription right now with his signature.

This is worse than trying to get into the Viper Room.

Me: OK. I guess I need an eye exam. Can I get one of those now? She points me over to the eye doctor's office in the other room.

I trudge over. No appointments till wednesday. Glasses in an hour, huh? My ass.

I go back over to non-helpful lady. I decide to give it on last ditch effort, not expecting much.

Me: Ma'am, I cannot wait until wednesday to get glasses. Is there anything I can do right now?

Her: (long pause, furtive glance around the room) Well, there's this guy...he fixes glasses. (I lean in, interested) Here's his number. Call him. (she shuffles away, leaving me with the secret phone number.)

So I call the number. The person says "Hello?" I say "Ummm. Someone told me you fix glasses." He says "Yeah. Bring em' in." He gives me directions. I drive to a brick building. I drive "around back" as he instructed. There is absolutely nothing back there. Then I spy a very small sign that says "Optical". I approach the door. It is locked. I knock, feeling like I'm doing somethign I shouldn't be. And also feeling like I should have some password ready. A large man with a farmer's outfit (overalls, hat, boots) opens the door. I hold up the plastic baggie that contains my broken spectacles. He wordlessly opens the door. I say brightly "So, can you fix these?" He points to the back of the small room, with maybe 20 pairs of glasses and a desk and an eye exam machine. "The fella back there can. He can fix anything." No one emerges. After an awkward moment, I head back to "the back" which is essentially a dark scary hallway. I hear the sound of a drill or something. I approach the sound and peer around the corner into a dark room. A crazy scientist man looks up at me. He is wearing some magnifying instrument on his head such that his eyes look extra big to me. Wondering if this will be my last sentence, I say "Umm...can you fix these?" He squints at my plastic bag and says "Yes. Forty bucks up front. Cash only. They'll be done in twenty minutes."

And they were. Twenty minutes of awkwardness, sitting in the small outer room with Farmer Joe, about whom it was unclear whether he worked there, was a customer or just a friend of crazy scientist man.

Well, my glasses are fixed good as new, and I didn't die. So, I suppose all in all it was a saturday afternoon well spent.

Sunday night, I went to a bar with a new friend and there was this woman, who sat next to me and kept asking me if she could use my cell phone. She asked me for my name at least three times, and her last words to me were "Jessi, don't you just want to spank the moose?" Shortly thereafter, she stumbled out the door to a waiting taxi cab. Ummmmm.

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