Crumbs From the Corner: Adventures in Woolgathering

Friday, August 22, 2008

When The Glass is Half Cracked



“Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.”
-Elizabeth Bowen

I have been postponing a grand disquisition on how Spouse at Last Bought Some Sunglasses. It had taken so long to reach that particular point of expenditure and decision-making that I almost did not believe it myself.
For two hours we languished in a large discount store and experimented with various colours, frames and designs. We compressed, I suspect, all the time we ought to have spent casually over the previous two years into one single- and I must admit pleasant- afternoon.
I would like to tell the world that it ended happily, but the truth is that the sunglasses cracked the other day. They mysteriously snapped in the same section of the frame that was fractured in the previous pair.
Worse yet, less than twenty four hours after we disposed of the receipt the sunglasses gave up the ghost.
I am, truth be told, rather more immune to the fact of the breakage than that of the receipt being lost to us forever. After all, quality understandably varies from item to item but the fragile piece of paper- which might just have recuperated if not our time then at least our money- sat in a pile of paper for more than two months without its services being required. It reposed quietly, waiting for the call of duty, but none came.
We tore it up and sent it out. The sunglasses had officially been made permanent.
Then they broke.
Once in a while, I might whimsically imagine myself to I have it all calculated and figured- life, that is- and then I am made sharply to understand that I have very little grasp on things.
A certain fact: a truly important paper will not ever be needed until the day after it is thrown away: although I cannot hear the sounds, the very walls are laughing at me, at us, at any soul who thinks otherwise.

3 comments:

polona said...

this sounds like one of those murphy's laws... but it proves true too often to be mere coincidence... i once had a tv that broke one week after the guarantee expired... oh well :)

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

I am currently the keeper of my husband's brand new eyeglass prescription. I know that one afternoon in the not so distant future we will make the trek to the eyeglass emporium and stand there in front of a gazillion frames while he attempts to make up his mind. Eyeglasses and shoes are the absolute hardest items for him to decide on. We will be there a long while.

I shall bring a book and perhaps an apple.

Phyllis Hunt McGowan said...

Polona, one week- oh, that's harsh. Poor you. There doesn't seem to be much we can do about these happenings :)

Pamela, great story- I know just what you mean. It's not easy to decide but best to spread the time out over several weeks or months than cramming it all in. We learned. I think :)

Please look around, explore my writing, leave a crumb:
I welcome comments and thoughts.