Perils of the disappearing glasses

Clayton Hayes is a lifelong resident of Dyer County.

There’s a peculiar phenomenon that strikes those of us who wear glasses—a mysterious occurrence that defies logic, common sense, and sometimes even the laws of physics. I'm talking, of course, about the inevitable moment when our glasses, those delicate and essential tools of vision, vanish into thin air. One minute, they’re perched securely on our noses or resting within easy reach, and the next, they’ve slipped into an alternate dimension where only stray socks and lost pens reside.

As a card-carrying member of the Myopic Society, I can attest to the daily struggle of trying to keep track of my glasses. It's a cruel irony that the very item I need to see the world clearly is the one I lose the most frequently. The absence of my glasses transforms me into a real-life Mr. Magoo, stumbling around with arms outstretched, squinting at blurry shapes, and muttering to myself in a way that surely alarms my neighbors.

The first stage of misplacing your glasses is denial. You convince yourself that they must be somewhere close, probably just a few inches out of reach. You perform a cursory sweep of the surrounding area—your bedside table, the couch cushions, the bathroom sink—but come up empty-handed. At this point, the logical thing to do would be to retrace your steps calmly. But let's be honest—who among us has the patience for logic when faced with impending blindness?

Instead, we skip straight to stage two: panic. Panic is a powerful motivator, especially when you're late for work, the dog is giving you judgmental looks, and you're starting to consider whether your prescription is strong enough to make do with a monocle.

In a frenzy, you begin searching in increasingly unlikely places. Perhaps you left them in the refrigerator while grabbing a snack? Or maybe they’re sitting in the laundry basket, hiding among the towels, just waiting to pounce on you as you attempt to fold your clothes.

Stage three is where things get weird. It's at this point that you start questioning your own sanity. Did I ever even wear glasses? Was this all some elaborate, years-long prank orchestrated by an especially mischievous optometrist?

Maybe my eyesight isn’t that bad after all, and I’ve just convinced myself I need glasses because everyone else was doing it. These are the kinds of thoughts that might have gotten you institutionalized a century ago, but in today’s world, they’re par for the course.

Finally, we arrive at stage four: resignation. You've checked every possible location at least twice, perhaps enlisting the help of a long-suffering spouse or a very confused pet. You've even gone so far as to lift up the couch and sift through the crumbs of a thousand forgotten snacks, all in vain.

At this point, you accept that your glasses are gone forever, likely teleported to that mystical land where all lost things dwell, never to return. It’s time to make peace with the fact that you’ll be squinting your way through the rest of your days, or at least until you can make it to the optometrist for a new pair.

But then, in a twist of fate so predictable that it’s almost comforting, your glasses reappear. And where do you find them? Right on top of your head. Or maybe they were hanging from your shirt collar all along. Perhaps they were even sitting in plain sight, perfectly visible to anyone except you, who was too caught up in the whirlwind of the search to notice them.

This is the cruel punchline of the misplaced glasses joke, a gag that the universe never seems to tire of. We’ve all been there, and we’ll all be there again, chasing after our glasses like a dog after its tail, only to find them in the most obvious place imaginable. But perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned in this perpetual game of hide-and-seek—an opportunity to practice mindfulness, or at the very least, to develop a sense of humor about our own forgetfulness.

After all, life is full of little absurdities, and losing your glasses is just one of many. So the next time you find yourself wandering around your house, blind as a bat and half-convinced that you’ve been cursed by some vengeful deity of eyeglasses, try to see the humor in the situation, even if you can’t actually visualize much of anything. Laugh at the absurdity, share your tale with fellow glasses-wearers, and remember that you’re not alone in this peculiar struggle.

In the grand scheme of things, losing your glasses is a small inconvenience, a temporary lapse in an otherwise well-ordered life. And when you finally do locate them safely perched on top of your head, you’ll be able to laugh at yourself, secure in the knowledge that you’ve outwitted the mischievous forces of the universe once again.

That is, until next time.