Glass Eye!

“SNARRRTTT!!!” (This is what PP’s little sis calls her—combine ‘fart’ and ‘snot’ and you get Snart. Okay, they were 9 when they made this up, so what do you expect? The strange thing is that they're 50 years old and still resort to this nickname. )

“Guess what I found?”

PP is afraid to ask. They’d been rummaging through little sis’s mother-in-law’s ‘Secretary’ Desk to find such treasures as: Letters about the weather from 1887; WW I Medals from great grandfather; several large ‘gold’ molars. So….PP didn’t really wanna know what the latest discovery was, but knew she had no choice.

“I don’t know. What did you find? I hope it’s not another tooth. I can’t handle that.”
“No, it’s not a tooth. Guess again.”
PP sighs, grins, “Honest, I don’t know. What?”
Lil' Sis holds up her cupped hands to PP’s face. Opens her hands to reveal….

“A GLASS EYE, Snart!” Lil’ Sis cries, delighted.
“GROSS!!!! Get it away from me!”
“Don’t you wanna hold it? It feels nice and smooth and cool and….”
”NO! I don’t want to hold it! Yuck! Put it back.”
“Okay, Snart, but you’re missing out.”

And reluctantly, but still giggling, she put it back in its secret hiding place in the top drawer of the desk.

This, PP thought, was the end of the Glass Eye.

But you guessed it, the theme continues.

The next day, PP partakes of an invigorating swim at the Encinitas YMCA. She’s visiting her sis and so gets access to this country club Y. But the pool is chilly. All those real swimmers from the Masters Team want it cold! The better to build up their lean, tan, muscular magazine cover bodies.



PP feels so white and pasty in San Diego. And she is. And so, this also brings back all those insecurities she felt as a teenager growing up in So Cal. Everyone was tan, lean, blond and athletic. Not that PP wasn’t all of these things; it’s just that she was never able to pull off ‘The Look’ with the same sort of swaggering confidence. And these Masters Swimmers—sure many of them were her age now, but they still had that So Cal ‘Look’—PP hates them.





Anyway, after her chilly swim, she heads for the hot tub, thankfully sliding into the warm bubbly water. Two fit 30 something girlfriends are gossiping in the corner. Completely ignoring her. As expected. One middle aged Indian Gent with too high waist swim trunks, nods and smiles at her. PP likes him cause he’s obviously not from the swim team, but she doesn’t want to encourage him, so she just nods and settles into the corner, closing her eyes.






She rests. She warms. It’s delicious!

After several minutes, she opens her eyes to observe a large pasty middle aged man enter the hot tub, gingerly. Maybe he’d been in the lane next to her in the pool now that she thinks of it. But maybe not. In any case, he nods, and smiles crookedly at her. Leaning one side of his face toward her, his left eye focusing on her; his right eye….

It looks up into his forehead. Not focusing on her at all.

PP feels chills up and down her spine in spite of the warm water.

Could it be?

No, what are the chances?

Two glass eyes in one weekend?

But yet…..

Forehead Eye Man settles down on the bench across from her, but not before giving her a final knowing nod.

It is. A GLASS EYE!!!!! Forehead Eye Man’s roving eye is a glass eye!

PP sinks down into the bubbles, trying not to stare, thinking how she wishes her sister were here to verify the glass eye sighting. (pun intended)

But she’s not. And so, it’s just a story. A good one, PP will grant you that. If you believe it.

Yet, somehow, PP’s still not sure she does.