Clean Broke

Having attempted to do some good (or 'yin') on Saturday, namely cleaning my flat, the inevitable 'yan' kicked in and broke my glasses. All that thrusting back and forth with Henry (the Hoover, that is) made me so sweaty that my glasses kept falling off. In attempt to rectify the situation and bend my frames into a better shape, i.e. one that didn't resemble the sliding technology used in Japanese bullet trains, I snapped them.

This turned out not to be a total disaster as I'd been thinking of getting some new frames anyway and I have contact lenses to enable me to see in my occasional moments of vanity. And, most importantly, it meant I had an excuse to stop cleaning.

Having made several phonecalls, I discovered that there is only one optician in the WHOLE OF LONDON that could knock up a new pair of glasses over the weekend. That's understandable - London is a small place. It was recently voted 2nd smallest village in the UK by Blind Moron Monthly Magazine.

Anyway, having dreaded going along to choose some new frames on my own (thus emerging from the shop resembling 'Dame Edna'), I ended up with the opposite problem: my immediate family and girlfriend all came with me to make an afternoon of it.

To cut a long story short, minus the Cartier section at the back of the shop (starting price for diamond-encrusted frames, £4,000), they all honed in on the most expensive pair in the shop. And muggins here had to pay for them. They seemed to cost £100 more than the second most expensive frames in the shop, as the 'arms' are hinged to bend in both directions (it's pretty cool actually).

I tapped in my PIN number, possibly for the last time, to pay for them and selected the option for a discounted pair of stylish mothballs for my wallet. One hour later, and following a calming cup of green tea bought by my girlfriend to stop me from shaking at fact I'd just spent the price of a decent 2nd hand car on my new facial-furniture, and they were ready for the wearing.

The style I went for are reminicent of the type seen on arsey graphic designer twats hanging around expensive sandwich shops in London, namely because I'm an arsey graphic designer twat in London. Although I went to Gregg's for lunch today.

Putting them on felt a bit like Robocop must have felt in the scene where he gets switched on, and I was immediately faced with the trauma of navigating myself through the sea of people on Oxford Street, and having a blind spot the size of two large muggers either side of my face. I then watched an incredibly dull extended 45 minute edition of 'Peep Show', which featured me standing on a bus home navigating my way through peoples armpits.

This morning, I discovered that none of my t-shirts look quite right with my new luxury nosewarmers, and it now appears that I've set off a vicious snowball of events (whatever a 'vicious snowball' is) that will empty my bank account and leave me sleeping on the streets. Albeit in incredibly stylish designer threads.

My paranoia at looking like a completely different person was confirmed when two of my best friends failed to recognise me last night, and two of my colleagues today commented "Oh, I've never seen you in glasses before!" (I wear glasses every day).

On the plus side to all of this, I may be able to have some fun with my new found semi-invisiblity. And they look like the kind of glasses that people who are never wrong wear, so I should be able to get away with saying anything. What fun!