the many cases of the missing glasses
problem
One of the most often heard questions in this house is J asking "Have you seen my glasses?"
Having a preference for being in possession of the full information required to answer the question accurately, I normally answer this question with one of my own.
"Which glasses?"
This scenario plays out daily. Sometimes more than once daily. I think the upper bounds of how often per day it plays out before "Which glasses?" becomes "FFS! AGAIN?" will tend to vary depending on how much energy and patience I have left that day.
Of course, now comes the answer to which glasses we (formerly just her) are looking for.
It can be the TV Watching Glasses. Or the Sunglasses. The black ones, not the blue ones with the flower patterns on the arms. The Driving Glasses. Or it can be the reading glasses. Any of the reading glasses. There are many more reading glasses than there are all the rest of the glasses put together.
Not all of them are the current prescription reading glasses though. Old ones are littered about the house that are not the current ones, so although I may have seen them recently, I am not required to suggest any of those. We want the current ones only. One of them anyway. Only if we're looking for reading glasses of course.
(Note: I'm alright distinguishing sunglasses from other glasses, obviously, but identifying which of the others are which type is harder. She will soon tell me when I have suggested some glasses which are not even the right type of course, often appended with the word 'stupid', but I will not then remember what type that pair is for next week/tomorrow/ten minutes time.)
Once I have established exactly which pair of spectacles we are trying to find, I can then suggest—unless I do actually know where they are (rare)—various standard places they may be.
I won't bore you with a full tour of the house, but take it as being 'any location in the house where there is a flat surface, upstairs or downstairs'.
Not that a flat surface is actually the defining feature of where the missing glasses may currently be hiding. On top of something that isn't flat itself but is on a flat surface is good enough—you will come to a flat surface if you remove enough teetering layers of not flat things eventually.
It doesn't have to be in the house either of course. Could be out in her car. Or in my car. Perhaps out in the garage on top of one of her pottery kilns. Or on top of the freezer. Or in the freezer.
(Note: The answer to the question "Have you seen my glasses?" is not ever "Are they still on your head?" We have been together too long and I've said that too many times for that to be funny. Even if they are on her head.)
solutions
I did think of two simple solutions to the problem of the constant glasses swapping which leads to mysterious glasses disappearances. I suggested may be she might be interested in asking the optician about having a single pair of glasses but with varifocal lenses. That's what I have, and I never have to change them from putting them on the morning until taking them off at bed time.
So I never have to say "Have you seen my glasses?" because they are always on my face, doing a fine job in the proper place in front of my own ailing eyes.
She said no, based on the fact her granny had bifocals and they were awful. Sitting there looking at her through my very clever and thin varifocal glasses that are not awful is no argument. Varifocals sound like bifocals, and are therefore similarly awful. Logical.
Then I suggested maybe a neck cord attached to her glasses so that.... "NO! NEVER! That really is an OLD LADY thing and you'll NEVER get me to do that."
Anyway, one day she came home from work with a neck cord attached to her glasses. "Do you like it? Tracey at work suggested it and I thought what a good idea. And it's pretty too."
OK. That's nice. (There isn't a punctuation mark that signifies 'exasperation' is there?)
Mission sort of accomplished then. Every pair of her commonly used glasses now has it's own neck cord fitted. No need to put her glasses down in random places. She can just let them hang from her neck when she doesn't need.... Oh.
What have I found in the utility room, on a flat surface beside the laundry liquids?
Yes, the current reading glasses.
Normally, whenever I find glasses in an odd place, probably contemplating becoming missing, I pick them up and put them in a better, easily found place on the kitchen counter.
But perhaps I'll leave her a helpful reminder note this time.
"This is a 'Neck Cord'. It's designed to go on your glasses so you can take them off and have them hanging around your neck so that you don't have to leave your glasses in odd places all over the house when you put them down."
I'm sure she'll appreciate that helpful reminder.
UPDATE:
J's reaction to this on finding her glasses, and of course the accompanying note, could have gone one of two ways. You may take the fact that I am here in my house in front of the computer to write the above as indicating it fell on 'seeing the funny side'.
Written by a real person who completely ignores red wavy underlining and uses perfectly legitimate brand new words that just haven't made it to a dictionary yet.
Post Link: https://skryblans.com/the-many-cases-of-the-missing-glasses
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I have been similarly fully trained to receive them gratefully.