Seeing is Belonging

For about twelve hours and two weeks, I have been Mr. Cool. I'd like to think that my fun-filled, fabulous (albeit overwrought) existence normally merits the designation of cool. In the most recent days passed, I have been extra cool. No, it isn't a new haircut, a new celebrity friend, or even traveling servants. No, this kind of cool is all about what I don't have. (No, I haven't lost any weight. That wouldn't make me cool; it would make me hot.)

It all started the Wednesday before Passover one hurried and unsuspecting morning on the crosstown train. Armed with a book as I am wont to travel when I do so solo subway-style, I ran into an UWS friend. As I noticed him coming my way, I closed my book and removed my glass from my face. That's when the shit hit the fan, or the frames hit the floor, whichever you prefer. My one pair of perfectly good glasses shattered before me and my commuting compadre.

As I made my way out of the Grand Central Station stop toward my office, I was disappointed by the notion that I might not have purchased insurance for the bastards. I have health insurance that includes dental. It never occurred to me to have an extra pair. It was hard enough to get the first pair.

They were five months old. How could they break?!? I had to lead a seder that weekend. I had to be able to read my email once I arrived in the office. I was scheduled to leave early that day. I made my way over to the optical store on my home. Luckily, it's in the hood. Once I got there, I was relieved to learn that the frames were still under warranty. But, my relief was quickly met with an odorous whiff of disbelief. In order to prove to the manufacturer that the frames were really broken, they had to be sent somewhere far way. I was promised a new pair in less than one week's time. An entirely new pair would take just as much time to arrive, the eyeglass frame-sellers claimed as they dance around the cauldron of my disappointment.

You have an imagination. I supplied the timetable in the first f***ing paragraph. It's no surprise that I am still waiting for my glasses. One store manager and two customer service people later, I haven't even received an apology. All I get is the run around. Until yesterday, no one would tell me what had happened. I'll have you know that I remained throughout a kind and understanding consumer, hoping in vain that it might help. I guess this is why other customers often exaggerate their ire when they make a complaint; it probably gets them somewhere.

The truth is that I do have somewhat of a back-up pair of glasses with a current prescription. They're in reliably great shape. The catch is that they're sunglasses, although I do appreciate the tint they provide on a world that I feel is already dark and despair-ridden. I figure that if I already look like an star with the shades, I might as well play up the melodrama.

This temporary "fix" is the worst in the office where I am forced to wear the sunglasses to see my computer screen. Many of my winner colleagues come up one by one asking, "What's with the shades?" When I see them approach, my instinct is to jerk them off and to save face by pretending that I wasn't wearing sunglasses at my desk. As they approach me, I fight the urge to retell the entire story so that I don't seem like the rest of the attention-grabbing characters that abound in the world of cubicles and copy machines.

Instead of cowering at colleagues who close in on me as I work, I play up the cool look. Maybe I've been crying. Maybe I'm stoned. Maybe, as many suggest, "I'm too cool for school." Whatever they might think, I prefer to keep them guessing. Until I clink glasses over my new pair of glasses, I will remain a cool cat who wears his sunglasses at night.