Blindness, envy, and jail

Tuesday I went to work with my monocles, and, well, it just wouldn't work. Fortunately we had a meeting, so I didn't need my eyes for that. The boss was informing us of some more bad news (Damned Bush and his handling of the economy), and the meeting took a good part of the morning. I had an email when I got in that the backup tape had run out at the other building, so there was something else I could do blindfolded. I had explained the situation with the boss lady, who told me I could take the afternoon off. They're real good about that, especially since a boatload of people retired last year and took a king's ransom in vacation pay with them. Now they like us using up our vacation.
So I walk over to the other building and change the tape and go on home. I eat lunch, and hope one of Daughter's friends can give me a ride to Walmart, where I should be able to get glasses pretty fast. And unexpectedly she walks in the door.
What are you doing home? I ask. She replies, I called your work and you weren't there so I figured you were here. I came for lunch money. You forgot to give me any.
You forgot to ask. So I give her lunch money and ask if her boyfriend can give me a ride? Nope, he works tonight. I suspect she's skipping school to be with her boyfriend, but a girl from school had given her a ride and they had to get back. Her boyfriend has Thursday off.
Damn. I can't go that long without glasses. I wonder if the bus goes to Walmart?
I had forgotten completely about the Mall, with two probably expensive eye doctors. The bus goes right there. So I call the bus company and yes, the bus goes to Walmart. Woo Hoo! I find out when it leaves downtown, walk to Duffy's to get change for bus fare and trudge on downtown, putting my monocles on to get across streets. Being blind sucks!
I get to Walmart and they're able to fit me in. It's been so long since I've had my eyes checked that I only recognized one piece of the equipment, which looked the same as they had when I was seven. Would I like to try contacts?
I had tried contacts 30 years ago, when they were made of glass. They felt like I had glass in my eyes. I had wasted about a hundred twenty bucks on them, back when you could see The Who or Led Zepplin for five dollars and a pair of glasses cost thirty. But the technology has really improved, and this was a free trial, so why not? Especially since I could get contacts right then and would have to wait two days for glasses.
They're disposables. They are really thin transparent rubber-like things. The girl shows me how to put them in, and I'm cringing, remembering the horrible torture of sticking glass in my eye, and I finally get it in and I can't even feel it! At all! Wow! I'm looking around in amazement; I can see! And I only have one of them in. I get the other one in, and wow! This is great!
So I pay for the exam and some cheap reading glasses and go to buy a DVD. While I'm there I pick up a few groceries, and wait for the bus.
While riding the bus home, a truly blind lady with a white cane gets on. God has a way of making me count my blessings!
I show up at work yesterday, and boss lady sees me without glasses and looks crestfallen. You couldn't get glasses? I tell her about the contacts, and she's pleased. So I walk down to the library and do some research, and the research isn't easy I need more powerful reading glasses. And it makes my eyes really tired. It looks like it's going to storm any time, so I go back to the office.
It starts raining a little, and wow! I love it! The first time I can remember that I could walk in the rain and see! Either you take your glasses off and not see, or they get wet and you can't see!
Married Lady had been urging me to ditch the nerd glasses for something stylish or better yet, get contacts so I could better attract members of the opposite sex. So I paid her a visit. She didn't even notice my lack of glasses. So I ask her, how do you like my new glasses?
Her jaw drops. Wow! It's nice having friends.
She's planning on going to the farmer's market at lunch and wonders if I want to go along. Sure, especially since I don't want to walk home in the rain. We can grab some dead cow at McBurger's.
So at lunch we walk downstairs, and it's pouring outside. She's not sure if she wants to go now, and doesn't even want to move the car, risking a parking ticket. I offer to get it and bring it around.
First time in my life I've driven a car without my glasses. Wow!
So last night Daughter's at church with her friends, and I walk up to Walgreens for some milk for my coffee, chat with her boyfriend, walk down to the liquor store for a six pack, and walk home. A little sticky from walking in the sun, I go upstairs to wash my face and I can't see out of my right eye! Shit!
Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit!!!
Damned thing must have come out and gone down the drain. SHIT!!! What to do? The buses don't run in the evening. Maybe they have disposable contacts at Walgreens, so I walk back up there.
I'm thinking hell, I might as well get a white cane and a dog. Lots easier than this!
Walgreens doesn't have them, but can special order them... I don't see Patty's boyfriend, but Joe's in the pharmacy. He calls Walmart for me to see how late they're open. He's off at 8:00 and offers to give me a ride. Maybe Walmart will take some to the Customer Service desk or something.
The lensless eye is itching. As Joe's on the phone with Walmart, I rub my eye, and the lens comes out! It had been in there all along, back behind the eyeball!
This morning Daughter's slow, and Evil-X is a little early picking her up for school. X walks in the kitchen as I'm struggling to get the second lens in. She does a double take and her jaw drops, and she has a crestfallen look on her face.
You got contacts!
Yeah.
How can you afford contacts? I explain that they're cheaper than glasses, that I would have had to wait for glasses. Daughter had told her about my broken specs, but hadn't mentioned the contacts. Good girl! This was certainly enjoyable. Yeah, I'm going to hell when I die...
I wish I could get contacts! She can't get contacts for her eye condition. I can't even afford new glasses and I need new glasses!
Well, gee, I wish you could too... Not really, that was a lie.
My sister's going to jail.
Huh? Sandy?
I like her sister. Not like, like (shudder), Sandy's a horrid looking thing; fat, toothless, wrinkled, froward. But she and her husband Porky have been more than in-laws, they've been friends. I've been to visit them since X left. I've been promising to visit X's dad, too. I bought him a bottle of the cheap whiskey he loves drinking so much but the van broke before I could get it to him. It's still sealed, in the bag. Porky tells me X's dad is disappointed that his old drinking buddy couldn't come by.
Yeah, X says, the bank's pressing charges.
Bank? What bank? She robbed a bank?
Well, I told you she stole some money from my dad.
Yeah?
Well, she stole my dad's checkbook when he was out of town and cashed eighteen thousand dollars worth of checks. The bank made good on them to his account and now they're going after Sandy. She's probably going to go to jail.
Wow. That explains a few things. I thought I was just being paranoid, but I guess I really am being investigated.
I found evidence that the Windows side of my PC had been compromised, and figured it was a script kiddie. Nobody else would want in my computer. There are no important passwords, CC numbers or anything else that would let someone steal my identity, and I have my photos and MP3s backed up on CD, so a script kiddie couldn't do much more than annoy me if he tried to do mischief. I was amused by the law13 dot something dot hotmail dot com it was sending important info to. The most illegal thing I do any more is jaywalking.
When I had spoken with Richard there was clicking from the phone, and I joked that one of us must have had our phones tapped.
Now that I hear about Sandy, I think it really is tapped, and it's not a script kiddie in my PC. I used to get high with Porky all the time, and they probably think I still have pot. She probably gave them my name to stay out of jail.
This is rather amusing, as like I said, the most illegal thing I'm guilty of any more is jaywalking! But they follow trails from person to person.
So, the fellow posting at K5 as the terrorists should be afraid. Be VERY afraid!