Averting Glasses Disaster

Today is a very special day.

It's the day I picked up my updated glasses with the new prescription for the bionic eye. Just over $100 and I have practically a brand new pair of spectacles in the fancy Eyephorics frames that would have cost way too much to replace.

After finally picking up guidebooks for Iceland and London, I thought I'd grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks and check emails. This almost turned into a situation with disastrous consequences in regards to my glasses.

Starbucks has a deal going where if you register and use one of their declining balance cards, you can have 2 hours of free Wifi every day. I had a Starbucks card from Sydney, Australia that my friend Stuart gave me as a gift a few years ago. Unfortunately, attempting to register and use this card didn't work all that well here in a U.S. Starbucks.

Instead, after having secured a comfy chair, I fumbled around with my laptop, drink, and miscellaneous possessions in an effort to get comfortable and get online. Upon realizing that purchasing a new U.S. Starbucks card and loading it at the register was probably the best option, I quickly learned that my glasses were not hanging from my shirt, where I thought I had put them.

I was looking around on the floor and on the chair, when some guy looked at me and asked if I was looking for a pair of glasses.

"In fact, I was. Did you see them?"

"Actually, I was thisclose to stepping on them by accident. I gave them to the folks behind the counter," he replied.

I thanked him and quickly retrieved my new-old glasses that almost became new-old-shattered glasses and wondered how I managed to dodge that bullet.

Side note - this might be the safest Starbucks I have visited, as in the hour I have been sitting here in Starbucks, I have seen four separate pairs of police officers grab cups of joe, each pair with a different uniform from the others. One appeared to be in SWAT team garb, the two here now have bright blue shirtsleeves, and the other two had more traditional Boston police uniforms but were not identical. Lots of patrols in this neighborhood, it seems!