pokey! Pokey! POKEY!

When I’m in my ceramics room, like I was on Saturday morning, and I’m cleaning ceramics, I take off my glasses. I’ve always done that when working on fine detail ceramic work. For one, I’m nearsighted. For another, sometimes when focusing close up with my glasses on, it takes me a few seconds and many blinks to get my eyes readjusted when I look up and far away.

So Saturday morning I was cleaning ceramics, with my glasses off, and when I picked them up I noticed they had ceramics dust all over them, so I went to wipe them off on my shirt. And while I didn’t feel that I was using any particular force, the nosepad on the right side up and popped off. I put the glasses on to search on the ground for the nose pad – isn’t it awful to try to find something small that you need for your glasses but you can’t wear your glasses in order to find it?! – and noticed immediately that while overall it wasn’t uncomfortable without the nose pad, there was something sharp poking me in the side of the nose. Pokey. Pokey. Pokey. Not painful, just… annoying. Pokey.

I found the nose pad on the ground and the little leg thing that sticks in over the screw was broken beyond repair. There was (pokey. pokey. pokey.) no way it was going to go back in and stay. That’s OK, I thought. Tim and I are going to dinner tonight and we (pokey. pokey. pokey.) can hit CVS on the way to Chopstix. I’m sure a pharmacy has a glasses repair kit with some nosepads. This was at about lunchtime (pokey. pokey. pokey.). I spent the rest of the day cleaning ceramics and loading the kiln up. I would take my glasses off (ahhh, sweet relief from the pokey) to clean and put them (pokey. pokey. pokey.) back on to carry stuff out to the kiln. Hours went by. Hours. I found myself getting more and more annoyed. I wasn’t in pain (pokey. pokey. pokey.), I was just… unsettled. Bothered. Fussed.

Finally it was time for dinner, and while it took us a few minutes to find what we were looking for, CVS did have both (Pokey. Pokey. Pokey!) a repair kit and nose pads. We sat in the parking lot while I pulled everything open and went to fix my glasses. Except (and you knew this was coming, right?) the (Pokey. Pokey. Pokey!) nose pads that CVS had – the only nose pads, I might add – were too big to fit into the tiny space of my glasses. Sigh. (Pokey. Pokey. Pokey!) Big sigh. Annoying. Frustrating. That’s OK, I think; I can cut them down to size with an Exacto blade when we get home. We go (Pokey. Pokey. Pokey!) to eat and even though the sushi was fabulous and the sunset over the lake was beautiful and Titi is pregnant again and absolutely (Pokey. Pokey. Pokey!) glowing and happy… I was really annoyed. Annoyed when someone would drop a dish. Annoyed when the toddler at the next table over would throw (Pokey. Pokey. Pokey!) her toys on the ground. Annoyed at the constant poking in the side of my nose.

We get home and I go to cut the nose pads down and (you know there was another “but” coming, right?!) discover that (Pokey. Pokey! POKEY!) the … this is a little hard to explain if you don’t wear glasses, but the little knob part that sticks (Pokey. Pokey! POKEY!) into the glasses…? You with me? On my original, broken nose pad, it was horizontal. On these nose pads (Pokey. Pokey! POKEY!) it was vertical. There was no way, even if I trimmed it down, that it was going to fit.

:twitch:

Sunday (Pokey! POKEY! POKEY!!) I had a lot of errands to run, plus Stitch ‘n’ Bitch. But one of my errands was at (Pokey! POKEY! POKEY!!) Target, and I figured they’d either have the right nose pads, or the place where I originally got my glasses (Pokey! POKEY! POKEY!!) was out in Butler so chances were good I’d be able to get my glasses fixed before going to (Pokey! POKEY! POKEY!!) SnB. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Target didn’t have any nose pads of any kind, and the glasses place was closed on Sunday (Pokey! POKEY! POKEY!!). So then I was annoyed at that, annoyed at the Butler Plaza parking lot, and STILL ANNOYED AT THE CONSTANT POKEY POKEY POKEY GOING ON WITH MY NOSE WHICH HAD BROKEN THE SKIN AND BURNED EVERY TIME MY FACE GOT SWEAT ON IT WHICH WITH THIS UNREASONABLY HOT WEATHER IS EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY A;DJA;DFJA;DFJA;DFJA;DJLFSK

Sorry. I’m fine now.

So I had a pretty short temper for SnB, and wound up leaving early rather than getting annoyed with people who weren’t the cause of (pokey. pokey. pokey.) my annoyance and don’t deserve my bitchery. I had two more things I could try. WalMart :shudder: right next door to where we were (pokey. pokey. pokey.) meeting, and a hopefully-open glasses place out in :again; shudder: The Oaks Mall.

Lo and Behold! WalMart had a set of nose pads with a horizontal (Pokey. Pokey. Pokey!) doohickey! I AM SAVED! I MAY BE BEING POKEY POKEY POKEYED TO DEATH BUT I DON’T HAVE TO GO TO THE MALL.

Except that I get home, spread everything out to FINALLY repair my glasses… and the doohickeys are just.too.big. And (Pokey. Pokey! POKEY!) to trim them down with an Exacto blade – which I was fully prepared to do – would cut into the hole where the screw goes, making (Pokey. Pokey! POKEY!) them useless.

Off to The Maul.

Bless his heart, Tim (AKA “That Poor Man”) went with me. We eventually found Lenscrafters (Pokey! POKEY! POKEY!!), and after waiting for the one and only person who was working to finish with the (Pokey! POKEY! POKEY!!) people in front of us, I hopelessly explained my situation. I wasn’t expecting help at this point (Pokey! POKEY! POKEY!!). I was expecting that I’d have to go back out to Butler Hell on Monday, when my glasses place was open (Pokey! POKEY! POKEY!!). I was expecting that, at this point, even they wouldn’t be able to help me and I’d have to break down and get a new eye exam and a whole new pair of glasses (Pokey! POKEY! POKEY!!). And after that the Moon would fall out of orbit and come careening into the Earth and we would all die horribly apocalyptic screaming and gory deaths.

BUT NO!

They do free nose pad replacements at Lenscrafters! And they had the right nose pads for me! AND ANGELS SANG! And as soon as the cut on the side of my face heals and stops stinging whenever sweat drips into it, I’ll be laughing about this whole situation.