If You Play Your Cards Right ...

I pulled out a rather dusty card yesterday that, admittedly, I was a bit ashamed about -- the Nagging Opinionated Wife card. Eeeks ... it does exist, and while I do use it from time to time, I have not pulled out the Big Guns in quite a while ... until yesterday.

Don's new job has brought about an unforeseen (pun unintended, but appropriate!) side effect -- massive headaches. Ten years ago, armed with some killer health insurance which included vision care, Don and I trekked down to an über-cool eyeglass joint in downtown Philadelphia ... and by cool I mean smokin' hot eyewear! Expensive? You bet -- but we were young, part of the DINK category ("double income, no kids"), and the vision insurance covered ... well, all of it. I walked away with the discovery of a bizarre eye disease which no one knows much about (oh, lucky me!), as well as a fun pair of rimless specs that I still enjoy to this day. Don's glasses, however, were beyond memorable -- made of buffalo horn, super sexy, and super pricey. "They'd better last you for the rest of your life!" I said.

Well, they lasted 10 years. The little screws are starting to loosen up and they're just wearing out. But even so, because of the headaches due to all this computer work, it was time for a new prescription. Ten years is a long, long time to go without a check-up. (And yes, I am preaching to the proverbial choir ... My turn will come one of these days).

He left for his appointment, and after a while I saw an email in my inbox -- a picture from Don, of the frames he had picked out. And that's when my card-playing began.

I hated them! Well, they weren't bad, in and of themselves, but I hated the thought of them on him. I immediately whisked off a bold "NOOOOO!!!!!" in the hope that he would receive my objection. Could I rescue him in time from a bad decision?

And why, you might be asking, did I feel the need to get involved in the first place?

Well, that's the Card in Question, isn't it -- this Nagging Opinionated Wife card. My first thought: I want my husband to look good ... and these won't do it! Perhaps some men can pull off rimless glasses, but not Don. (And perhaps some of you might even have oh-so-deftly caught the double-standard, as I sit here staring at my computer screen ... wearing rimless glasses. My second thought: I don't want to be some dorky twin couple who wear the same glasses.). And yet ... could there be another level to this? Another layer that I don't want to uncover, for fear of what I might find? Could it be this bizarre need of control that rears it's irraitonal head from time to time? I can't control my husband, of course -- nor do I want to -- but I can "lend a hand," shall we say, in his appearance. Perhaps, too, I'm starting to feel a little ... old. Perhaps I recognize that we aren't in our hip, cool 20's ... but I want myself, and my husband, to linger in that general neighborhood for as long as possible. My fear was that these rimless glasses would propel Don into the next decade of life far too soon.

I picked up the phone and, after hearing his "Ugh, here we go..." hello, I pitched my frantic plea. "You didn't buy them, did you? Pleeeeaasssee tell me you didn't buy them!" Of course, I proceeded to explain why I felt that way. "The picture probably didn't do it justice," he countered. "Trust me -- they look good."

Trust me ... ah, there's the rub. Frankly, I didn't trust him -- not in the department of appearance, at least. When he shaved off his Baker's Dozen-year's worth of goatee, I asked him -- kindly, gently -- to grow it back. And my wonderful, forgiving, I'll-put-up-with-her-antics husband cancelld his order and suggested we go back later in the evening, so we could pick something out together.

Perhaps you're shaking your collective heads at this none-too-attractive side of me, but let me tell you -- seeing the frames in person didn't change my mind. He put them on ... and suddenly aged another decade right in front of my rimless bespectacled eyes. Later I said to him, "Can I honestly tell you what I thought? I thought you looked like a dad ... a 48 year old dad who sits in a cubicle all day crunching numbers. You didn't look like ... you." Don't get me wrong -- there's absolutely nothing wrong with a 48 year old dad ... But when you're only in your 30's, it's nice to enjoy it for as long as you are able. He'll get there soon enough.

I don't think he was completely convinced -- at first. And I do understand why he liked those frames -- they felt like air, like he wasn't wearing any glasses at all. But on a practical note, they wouldn't have worked well. He only needs glasses for reading and, obviously, computer work, so all through the day he will be putting them on and taking them off. With ear pieces the equivalent of flexible wires, they're not all that suitable for tugging on and off. That convinced him.

It was slim-pickin's, though ... all of the frames that looked fabulous on him were too narrow. Maybe I was trying to channel his fantastic buffalo horn frames and find a similar replacement -- but I do think he looks great in a heavier frame. Finally we settled on one we both liked -- in fact, a perfect compromise. Heavy frame on top, rimless on the bottom, and fantastically cool ...
OK -- perhaps this isn't "The One" ... but it was the closest I could find. I love them, and I think he looks amazing in them. Different? Sure. He called them "Old man glasses that were funkified." So ... perhaps that was hitting a little below the belt, playing a card I might not have had any right to handle. But ... we all do it, don't we? To some extent or another, to be sure, we all exert our opinions, couching them in a more subtle, gentler guise, perhaps.

Oh, I am so flawed ... but you know -- my husband looks pretty darned cool ...