Clovis and His Glasses

The other morning my cousin Clovis awoke in somewhat of a stupor. Seems he was up late the night before watching a triple-overtime college basketball game, and then woke up in the middle of the night with a sinus headache. At 5:30 A.M. his two Saint Bernards slobbered all over him, letting him know that he’d slept in and that they needed to go outside, he was - to hear him tell it - in a haze, a fog, a stupor, as he fumbled for his glasses.

Now normally, as he tells it, he puts his glasses on once he is out of bed, but this particular morning he reached for his glasses on the nightstand and put them on while still in bed. The problem was that the two beasts were still licking him, insistent that he arise, walk, and open the door. There was no abatement of the licking, even after the glasses were placed on their master’s face - they gave the glasses a Niagara of slobbering. Having myself witnessed the massive amounts of drool that these behemoths are capable of producing, I can easily picture the result, as told to me by Clovis - he couldn’t see, his vision was worse than a blurr, it was if sheets of rain were plummeting a car’s windshield on an interstate highway.

Clovis got out of bed, felt his way through the bedroom, down the hall, to the front door. He opened the door and, once the beasts exited to attend to their morning routine, Clovis went to the half-bath in the hallway and reached for the bottle of lens cleaner kept in the bottom of the vanity. He sprayed the lens cleaner on his glasses, took a tissue from the tissue box on the vanity, wiped the lens cleaner from his glasses and then put them on - what was once blurred vision now became opaque vision; in fact, he could see no better with the glasses on than with them off. At this point the dogs starting barking at the front door, wanting back inside. Not wanting the barking to wake his wife he hurried out of the bathroom to get to the door - he was so disoriented and confused and concerned about his vision that as he was feeling his way down the hallway he forgot that the door to the basement stairs was normally open, and when his hand - which had been running along the wall to give him a sense of stability - hit the open space of the open door he lost his balance and fell four steps down to the landing.

As Clovis was trying to collect his wits, which I imagine had spilled down the stairs into the basement, he heard Francine’s footsteps heading to the front door. Then her voice as the door opens, “What is going on here! What are you two doing outside? Where is your father? Is he out there? How long have you poor things been outside trying to get in?”

“Clovis, where are you? Clovis? Where are you?”

“I’m here.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“Where’s here?”

As Francine tells it, she looked down the basement stairs, turned the light on in the stairway, and saw Clovis sitting on the landing. He looked like a mess.

“Did you sleep there? Did you leave the dogs out all night? What’s the matter with you? I’ve got to get dressed and go to work, I don’t have the day off like some people. Couldn’t you hear the dogs barking? I bet they woke the neighbors up. What are people going to think?”

“Francine, I think you may need to take me to the doctor. Something has happened to my vision.”

“Well put your glasses on.”

“They are on, can’t you see? They aren’t helping. I can’t see with them and I can’t see without them. I had a terrible headache in the middle of the night, I thought it was a sinus headache, but maybe it’s something else that’s affecting my vision.”

To hear Clovis tell it, Francine’s tone of voice changed from irritated to compassionate and she went down to the landing and helped Clovis to his feet. To hear Francine tell it her tone of voice had been concerned and compassionate from the beginning. She guided Clovis up the stairs, into the kitchen, and to a chair at the kitchen table. In the meantime the dogs were whining, wanting to be fed.

“Let me take care of the dogs, just sit there.”

“I can’t imagine what happened. It must be related to the headache.”

“Were you in the recipe last night after I went to bed?”

“I haven’t touched the recipe for months.”

As Francine fed the dogs Clovis sat perplexed and confused, wondering what had happened to his vision.  Finally she walked over to him and took a good look at her husband - “What in the world have you done to your glasses?”

“What do you mean?”

“No wonder you can’t see, they are covered in something.”

“The dogs slobbered on them in the bedroom, after I let them out I cleaned them with the lens cleaner in the half-bath.”

“Really?”

Francine walked to the bath, grabbed a spray can from the sink top, and walked back to the kitchen.

“So you cleaned your glasses with lens cleaner?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you put it when you were done?”

“I probably left it on the top of the vanity.”

Francine placed the spray can on the kitchen table - it was hair spray.

“Give me your glasses and I’ll clean them up.”

Clovis surrendered his glasses, Francine washed them with Dawn and water, then cleaned them with lens cleaner - not with hair spray.

“Before I give you your glasses back I want to try something.” What that she sprayed Clovis’s hair with lens cleaner - not hair spray.

“Hey, what are you doing!”

“Oh, I thought that if I sprayed lens cleaner on your head that maybe you’d see things more clearly, think more clearly - is it helping?”