I lose between eight and 15 eyeglass cases a year. It drive me nuts. One second I’ve laid them down in front of me, the next they disappear. No one ever returns them even though I put my name and number on the inside. Some are quite elegant and I grow attached to them, except a month later they’ve left me. Staring at my folded, naked glasses, they seem frighteningly vulnerable without their case. I feel incomplete, worse than when I lose my keys, which happens almost as frequently, and what would a Jungian say about that?
At my old job I would surreptitiously check the lost and found area for other people’s glasses, slip them out of their case and consider it mine. I imagined the eyeglassless co-workers checking the lost and found and being momentarily relieved when a fellow worker shows them their glasses, and their faces taking on a puzzled, then gradually disappointed and perturbed expression as they absorb the fact of the missing case.
I had a pair from Pearle, and at least three times a year I chose a day off to circulate among their local outlets, entering holding my glasses, pointing to their trademark on the frame, asking if I can get a replacement case for the one I lost. I would invariably exit with my treasure, no questions asked. But then I stupidly sent those glasses to one of those charities that accepts old ones and got a new pair somewhere else and now I can’t do my Pearle Tour. I imagine volunteers at these second-hand eyeglass places, people who have flunked the Peace Corps background check, spending hours with poor souls trying on one pair after another, hoping for a visual prescription match.
“How’s that? A bit fuzzy? Here, let’s try these.”
Seventeen hours later an unemployed kitchen helper leaves with glasses that give him a moderate headache if he wears them 15 minutes straight.
So now my plan involves heading to a large chain outlet (not Pearle) in a busy mall, sauntering inside, checking out frames and styles, eyeing the salespeople and eventually inching over to the glass case display where I feign idle curiosity while absent-mindedly picking up a velvety green number. Acting impatient, like I haven’t got all day, I check my watch, sigh heavily and stride out the door as though I have an appointment with the mall manager, or maybe I am the mall manager hurrying off to quell a CVS dispute over a Polygrip sale, glass case in hand.
Of course I could just walk up and ask for one and maybe they’d accede with a smile. Or they might smirk and spout something about giving away free cases being against company policy and stare at me like I was some kind of loiterer. In my fragile state of mind, mall humiliation is not something I can handle. So I do it my way, returning an hour later, signing a different name to the list, going through the same routine, coming away with three or four new cases by dinner. Stealing? I see it as redistribution. I inadvertently give mine to others in need, so this is quid pro quo. Interestingly, since my mustache went gray, as well as my sideburns, people seem to trust me more. At least they don’t see me as a threat, just this benign old guy wandering around, slightly disoriented. I can also flirt with young women in mild ways and come across as someone who spent years lounging on the Riviera with tawny fashion models and more than a hint of intrigue when I lift an eyebrow and say stuff like, “I’ve had worse moments,” after a woman apologizes for cutting me off att a revolving door or bumping into me on public transportation. I do seem to have developed a Louis Jourdan panache in recent years.
I’d consider carrying a cigarette case, but with all these hidden glass cases, where’s the room?
– Joe Del Priore