A Cautionary Tale

It all started because I am a nice mommy.

My kids wanted to ring in the New Year and weren't buying our line that, at 8 PM it was already midnight somewhere in the world. So I promised to wake them up and we all trouped off to bed.

This was the year that Squidette had chosen the "union"* frames for her glasses. That will never happen again.

After snuggling Papa Squid to sleep, I reemerged around 10 PM and knit quietly until 11:45 PM. Then I started the process of waking the kids. First up was Little Squid who is difficult to wake. I partially roused him and then went into Squidette's room. She woke with a start, knocking her glasses to the floor. While she crawled around, finding them, I finished waking Little Squid and we all met in the darkened living room. Squidette was holding the pieces of her glasses. The knock to the floor had cracked open a superglue frame fix and the lens had popped out. Again.

Did I mention that these were the union frames? Only 6 weeks or so after she got them, the screw on one frame corner had decided to stop holding the wire frame together. We were traveling at the time and my Uncle had repaired them with superglue holding the screw and frame into place. Since the superglue fix had held quite well, I'd never gotten around to getting them properly repaired.

Back to New Year's Eve.

We snuggled under a blanket on the couch and watched television coverage of the ball falling. Squidette squinted at the screen. We hugged, kissed, and opened the window to hear the echos of the crowd in Times Square. Then the kids returned to sleep and I went for the superglue to fix the broken glasses ...

Retrieving a brand new tube of superglue, I carefully used the cap to pierce the foil covering and returned the applicator to the tube. The cap was carefully set aside where the residual glue on it could dry without dripping on anything.

Glue was carefully applied to the glasses and, for good measure, I had put some around the rim to hold the lens to the frame in case the screw joint gave way again.

I then held the whole thing together, being very careful to avoid getting glue on my fingers. At some point, I decided that it would be a good idea to close up the tube of superglue. So, with my free hand, I reached for the cap and stuck it into my mouth to hold.

Do you see where this is going?

As I grabbed the tube to push into the cap, I stuck my tongue against the top for extra leverage and encountered ... you guessed it ... the still wet superglue in the cap top from piercing the foil. Quickly, I removed the tube and cap from my mouth and set it down on the table but the damage was done. I had superglue on the tip of my tongue and, now on my fingers as well. D'oh!

Keeping my tongue stuck out of my mouth, I started working on peeling the glue off my tongue. As I recall, it came off with only a moderate amount of effort and left no damage behind. I can only assume that the ever present coating of saliva prevented a more permanent bonding.

Nail polish remover was quietly retrieved from the bathroom and I worked for quite a while at removing the superglue from my fingers and, of course, the lenses of the glasses I had been repairing. Sometime around 1 a.m. I finally fell into bed with most of the superglue removed from my person.

The glasses? They looked just fine and the repair held until the next pair was purchased 4 months later.

The moral to this story? Never use superglue after midnight!

*Union Frames: those frames totally covered by our optical insurance. Generally kept in a dusty box in the basement of the opticians and consisting of frames that are 10 years or so out of date. (O.K., I am exaggerating somewhat. The pickings have gotten a little better since Mike was a kid. Squidette's glasses were quite in vogue at the time.)