Throughout the years of our marriage, Mark has astounded me with his idiocy. I've tried to be accepting and understanding of it, but there have been times when it has cost us dearly. Like just over the past year he has lost 7 pairs of prescription eyeglasses at work. He swears they fell out of the truck and does not know where they went to but I know him better than that.

After sixteen years of living with Mark, I think I just might be qualified enough to make an educated guess as to how his glasses seemed to have disappeared into thin air. I imagine it goes something like this.

Mark earns his living as a letter carrier for the US Post Office. He has described to me on many occasions the details of his day. He drives to his route and fills his bags and both of his hands with the bundles of mail for the city block he is delivering to. When he gets out of his mail truck he forgets to take off his glasses. Halfway down the block as he is struggling to make out the address on the envelope he realizes that he cannot read with his glasses on. His hands are full with letters to be delivered. Flexing a couple of fingers he takes off his glasses and holds them in his hand with the bundles of mail he is delivering.

Like the nutty professor he is completely oblivious to what he is doing. Maybe he is delivering a magazine with Springsteen or Bono on the cover. His mind is racing with the headlines of that article and he is dying to just go back to his mail truck and read the article. Of course he can do that later when he takes his break since he has several other copies of the magazine to deliver. He proceeds on his route with his mind in la la land. The smell of the crisp morning air doesn't snap him into reality like most of us, but sends his mind out into the void where artists go to write their songs or have some imagined interview explaining their creation. With the mail and his forgotten glasses in hand he conveniently delivers them both to whatever mailbox he is servicing at the time, never to see his glasses again!

With a tight household budget, this is enough to send any wife into a menopausal stampede. So if you by any chance find a pair of glasses in your mailbox, please drop them off at your local post office. It might save some poor idiot postman from his wife's raging hormonal changes.