Bob and Dolly and the Eyeglasses

While drinking my coffee this morning, a random thought popped into my head that made me smile.

My Mother and Father have passed quite a few years ago. As in need of therapy as I am now, I do have some wonderful memories of them both, indivdually and together. They had been married 54 years at the time my father passed. It was quite a long love affair and as they grew older they tended to share the same afflictions. I recall one story that had me crying with laughter.

As we age, our sleep patterns tend to be chopped up. We fall asleep, awake and then nap. This was true of my father. For the last three of four years of his life, Dad would awake around 4:30 in the morning, shave, go for a walk, have his cereal, read the paper, shower and then nap until about 10 AM. Mom on the other hand, stayed up late, falling asleep in the chair and going into the bed around 2 AM, sleeping until Dad's second awakening. And then they would have coffee together and plan the rest of their day.

ne early morning, Mama awoke and was going to go to the bathroom. Without her glasses and half asleep she stumbled and fell to the floor; somehow wedging herself between the night stand and the bed. She believes Dad is still in bed asleep. She begins calling for him repeatedly, "Bob, Bob, Bob." After several minutes and her calls becoming somewhat panicy, the bathroom door opens and there stands my father with razor in hand, shaving cream on his face and the water running in the sink. Startled by Mom's position he asks "Dolly, what are you doing down there?" After she reacts to him with an angry word or two, they both fall into laughter. "My God," she said, "the kids will certainly put us in a home after this."

After stumbling around, Bob gets his glasses on and helps Dolly up from the floor and onto the bed. She isn't really hurt but stinging from hitting the nightstand. She falls back into laughter as she looks up at her husband of 50+ years standing there with shaving cream on his face, shirtless and wearing his glasses (now smudged with shaving cream). They fall into another wave of laughter; mind you Dolly hasn't gotten to the bathroom yet. I will leave that picture to your imagination as they both scrambled into their small master bedroom bathroom.

Now being wide awake, the two of them go into the kitchen to have coffee together. Still laughing, Dolly takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes, wipes off her glasses and replaces them on her nose. She looks at Bob and says, "maybe I did hit my head, because I'm having a hard time seeing." Bob takes his glasses off and says, "well, I didn't hit my head but I'm a little blurry as well." As he sets his glasses on the kitchen table he realizes that Dolly had HIS glasses on. Somehow in the bathroom phase of this event, they had both set their glasses on the sink and picked up the wrong set. Nearly an hour has gone by before the couple realize this.

Mom waited until about 9 AM to call me at the office to recount this tale. When I heard her voice at 9, I was immediately on guard thinking something had gone wrong. I guess you can say the morning went "alittle wrong." But it was a story I still cherish.

As my Dad would always say, "that's my wife." There was never a dull moment with Bob and Dolly.