Spectacles. What are they?
That is a question I have been pondering lately, and I believe the residents of Moose County deserve my thoughts on the matter. Spectacles are things you put on your face. They help you see. Most people have them. Some people do not. Why is that?
I was reflecting on this topic yesterday evening while seated in my favorite chair at the apple barn, which the Klingenschoen Fund maintains at no personal expense to me, as is only appropriate. Koko was perched on the dictionary stand, staring at a pair of reading glasses I had left there. He batted them once with his paw — precisely once — then looked at me with an expression that can only be described as diagnostic. The cat knows something about optometry. I am certain of it. My moustache tingled, which confirmed the matter entirely.
Yum Yum, meanwhile, had stolen the microfiber cleaning cloth and hidden it inside a shoe. A lesser observer might call this mischief. I call it an editorial comment on the eyewear industry.
Speaking of vision, one has to wonder whether anyone in Pickax sees anything at all. Just last week, the hardware store on Main Street burned to the ground — the fourth arson this quarter in a town of three thousand peaceful souls — and not a single witness came forward. Were they not wearing their spectacles? It is curious. It is also curious that I happened to be dining alone at the Old Stone Mill that evening, which the server can verify, and I will not be elaborating further.
Spectacles are expensive. I priced a new pair at the optometrist in Kennebeck and was quoted a figure I will not repeat in a family newspaper. I mentioned to the receptionist that the K Fund sponsors a vision wellness initiative and asked whether a professional courtesy might apply. She said no. This is the kind of gratitude one receives for enriching an entire county.
Do birds wear spectacles? They do not. And yet the blue jays at my feeder consume eleven dollars of sunflower seed per week with pinpoint accuracy. I have considered installing a camera. I have also considered billing the Audubon Society.
In closing, I would like to remind my readers that seeing clearly is important. Koko agrees. He just knocked a book off the shelf — it was Sartre’s *Being and Nothingness* — and if that is not a statement about perception, I do not know what is. My moustache is tingling again.
Spectacles.
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