Ten minutes until formal dinner onboard our cruise ship and our adjoining cabins look as if they were caught in the onslaught of some clothing apocalypse. Fancy dress up apparel in various kid sizes is dripping from every piece of furniture. A freshly ironed shirt on the chair. An adorably tiny clip on tie on the dresser. Four different sizes of the same pair of black shoes lined up on the bed. With the urgency of an air raid drill, I am cajoling-even begging-that my four casual-dress loving boys cram into their suits and uncomfortable shoes for just one dinner. And would a smile be too much to ask?

I am hustling, as best you can in a form fitting black dress and too high heels, from one reluctant boy to the next. With a frenzied fling, and, I’m not going to lie, a crazy look in my eye, I sweep another crisply ironed shirt off the dresser and hurl it towards one of my older sons. The clip-clop of my shoes punctuates my pleas to speed up the process, as I hurry to help the littlest boy with his buttons.

Clip-clop, clip-clop. Crunch.

I freeze. I squint towards the dresser and squint even harder at the floor. Instinctively, I feel for my face and find that I am not wearing my glasses.

No, no, no, no! My glasses!

Feeling around underneath my shoe, I pick up more than one piece and hand them pitifully to my husband. I am too visually impaired, and tragically shocked to access the damage myself. Whatever the verdict, it hardly matters. We are in the middle of the ocean on a ship that has a plethora of amenities. Sadly, an optometrist office is not one of them.

I accept my half-blind fate, and head off to dinner with five handsomely dressed men. At least, I think they are handsomely dressed. Everything is a blur. I opt not to sport the one side of my glasses that remain intact in some monocle -style form, and instead spend the next two days stumbling from place to place with limited visual acuity. Luckily, stumbling, either from the rocking of the ship or all day drinking, is not out of place among cruise go-ers.

~So glad we had this picture taken. At least now I can see what everyone looked like that night~

Two days later, we pull into port and I high-tail it (as best you can when you can’t see) right past the cheap watches and oversize sombreros into a drug store to buy some superglue. I spend the next three days of the cruise wearing ghetto-glued glasses, but at least I can see and the stumbling stops.

And now I travel with a spare pair of glasses in my carry-on. Lesson learned. 

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