Friday, April 08, 2005

Notice anything?

Last year I got new glasses. After six years of the same round wire frames, which were preceded by four years of slightly different round wire frames, I got rectangular blue plastic frames. The new glasses completely changed the way I looked. They were a totally different style. So that night when The Husband got home, I went into the bedroom and put on my new glasses for the big reveal. I came out and said, “Ta da!”

The Husband looked at me blankly. “What?” he said. Panic started to set in. He could tell I was trying to show him something, but what? “Did you change your hair?”

“What? No!” I shouted indignantly.

“Uh… new shoes? New outfit? You put makeup on!” He was shouting anything that popped into his head.

Now, to fully appreciate the situation, you should know that I had previously discussed the upcoming purchase of my new glasses at length with The Husband. Choosing new glasses is a very important decision, particularly if, like me, you wear your glasses all the time. It’s your face. You need to pick the right ones. I didn’t have anyone to shop with, so I had talked to him about the ones I found in this or that eyeglasses store, and about how I like that one pair, but I wasn’t sure, and blah blah blah. Now, maybe I can understand his attention drifting during some of those conversations.

But here’s the thing. I had also picked him up from work the day I bought the glasses, and on the way home I told him that I bought new glasses that day. The big reveal and the “ta da” were about five minutes after that.

Much to the chagrin of The Husband, every single other person in my life noticed my new glasses immediately. “Wow, Mo! I love your new glasses!” I heard it over and over again. My mom. My sisters. My friends. The Doktah. Leah Lar. Minneapolis Friend. The P.I. OK, maybe not The P.I. But the rest of the lab. And I hadn’t told anybody but The Husband that I was going to get new glasses. Strangers on the street stopped to tell me that they like my new glasses, even though they didn’t know that they were new.

But not The Husband. The Husband, who knew ahead of time that I was going to get new glasses, who was told moments before seeing them that they had been purchased, didn’t notice them. No. Instead I got, “Uh… I know, jewelry! New jewelry!”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In his defense, I didn't notice them either.
--The Brother

Dr. Maureen said...

Yeah, but I hadn't been talking to you about them five minutes before showing them to you.