It may not be a good story, but I like it . . .

I never considered myself to be clumsy. I probably should have. One time before school in 2^nd grade (grade 2 if you’re Canadian) I was talking to my sister in the bathroom. I was mid-sentence and I decided to put my foot up on the toilet lid. Well, it wasn’t closed, and my foot (in my awesome red tennis shoes!) plunged into the icy depths. Pretty sure that turned me off to that particular pair of red shoes forever.

Anyways, I was getting ready for the first day of orientation to OT school when I washed a contact down the drain. This would have been less memorable but for two facts: 1) I have hard contacts, which cost about $125 an eye to replace; and 2) I had up till that point never lost a contact in the 14 years I had been wearing them.

I had a nice pair of glasses that were only about a year old at the time that I got to wear for a couple of weeks of school until my new contacts came in. I had purchased those glasses to have a nice pair to wear while traveling to Africa, where the dust and whatnot made contact wearing less than desirable much of the time. I had pretty decent vision insurance at the time, so I got some nice spendy options on the glasses too, like bifocals (I’ve got horrid vision) and an anti-glare coating that the lady made seem really cool. Those glasses accompanied me to Europe, Africa, the ship, and back again. They served me well during the first couple of weeks in OT school when I was sans contacts.

I had two days off during the week that first semester. On one of those wonderful days, I was taking my time getting ready for the day. I had placed my glasses on the back of the toilet while I showered. After my shower, I used the toilet, flushed (because I’m a good roommate and all), and as the toilet flushed I grabbed my glasses off the back. My finger flexors chose that moment to stop working, and I dropped my glasses into the flushing toilet. I thought “Oh dang it, I’ll have to reach in and grab them! But I will wait till the toilet is done flushing.” As this thought was flitting through my head, I realized that my glasses were GONE. Completely. Flushed to the great beyond, which I can only assume is the ocean, as all drains lead there. I stared in disbelief for a few moments, then decided I should probably call my dad. I had no idea what to do. I am pretty sure the conversation started in this way: (imagine me crying. Because I was.) "Dad, this is going to be really funny one day, but right now I'm really upset . . . "

I ended up calling the plumber, who offered to break the toilet to get out the glasses. I figured that was probably a terrible idea, so he said that that the toilet snake would probably get them out really easily, but not in one piece. He had so much trouble though. He snaked that darn toilet at least 15 times before pulling out one mangled earpiece from my glasses. The toilet was flushing more easily, so we knew that my glasses had made it beyond our toilet. They were probably rejoicing at finding their glasses father, who is apparently aquatic and probably named Marlin.

It was towards the end of the year, so frames were on sale. This was great news to me because I no longer had that helpful vision insurance. And that is the story of how I got D&G frames.

In other news, I look fabulous with a handlebar mustache:

Seriously, I might have to become the sort of villain who wears all black and ties damsels to train tracks.