Getting dressed this morning, I picked up my glasses to wash the lenses, and discovered there was only one lens. The right lens had fallen out, somewhere. My husband and I between us have been all over the house, but we couldn’t find the stupid lens. I wore the glasses last night and they had both lenses then. It’s somewhere in the house but we can’t find it.

So, you take the glasses down to the glasses shop and they fix them, right? Not exactly.

First, these are my driving glasses – progressive bifocals. Without them, I can’t legally drive a car – and really, I don’t want to.

Second, I don’t have a spare pair. I’ve never had more than one main pair of glasses, although I currently have two pair of “computer/reading” line bifocals.

Third, I have plane tickets for Las Vegas on January 7, to visit my sister – 10 days away. I planned this carefully, it’s in a space in my schedule where I won’t miss anything here. But I have to be able to drive a car.  Las Vegas has no options for people who can’t drive.  They say Uber is now there, but (a) I don’t trust Uber, and (b) they’ve only been there since September and I have no idea how available they actually are.

I’m flying to Las Vegas in 10 days and I have no glasses.  I do have all my glasses prescriptions, so we took them down to Oakland Kaiser optical shop and were told that any repairs would take a minimum of 3 weeks, because holidays.  I’ve noticed before that Kaiser personnel don’t like to work on holidays – I once spent an unnecessary day in the hospital after a knee replacement because it was the day after Thanksgiving and there were no physical therapists on duty to check me out to confirm that I could walk.  Sorry, Kaiser, this is true.

I do not want to have to reschedule that trip.  I’m already hoping I will throw off the cold I’ve caught, in time to spend an hour and a half on a plane.  So we took my prescriptions over to the Site for Sore Eyes on Piedmont Avenue.  They, thank God, can do the job in 3-5 business days, which will get my glasses back just in time to leave.  I think my next pair of glasses may come from them, and right after New Year’s, too.

Meanwhile, I have no glasses, except for the 2 pair of line bifocals, and I can’t drive a car.  I’ve worn glasses my entire life, since approximately the age of seven, and I keep looking for them, and remembering that they’re in the shop.  Since my cataract surgery, I can do close work without glasses – I’m typing this without glasses.  But anything farther away than about 3 feet starts to get fuzzy.  And I’ve never considered that a spare pair was worth the considerable expense.  I’ve changed my mind on that one, for sure.

And I’m absolutely gobsmacked by how weird and limiting it is, not to have my glasses available.