Where Are My Glasses? [Part III]

After moving into our new home, my wife and I had a lot of work to do cleaning the place out. Although the furniture was all gone (all but the bookshelves and deteriorating sofa we bought from the previous owner), a general layer of dust and greasy newsprint covered everything. Friends of ours came over to help decontaminate. We scrubbed all day and all night, making a few odd discoveries along the way. Like the ten years worth of rubber bands that had accumulated between the refrigerator and the wall. Or the shower cap still hanging on the bathroom door. The most-bizarre find was on the underside of a kitchen drawer – a Cro-Magnon-like doodle of a naked woman’s body in black permanent marker. No head, no feet. Just tits and pussy. We could only assume this was the act of a mischievous construction worker, with poor art skills and a primitive view of the female figure. It was good for a laugh and the doodle remains to this day. It continues to provide wholesome amusement on Thanksgiving with my in-laws.

In our salvaged bookshelves, I happened on the only true treasure left behind -- not a dried-out rubber band or an old phone bill. It was two highball drinking glasses with the Crown Royal logo etched on the face. They were still in their original packaging, a sort of commemorative set. It was obvious they had never been used.

My wife and I are not heavy drinkers. Even so, we could not ignore the impressive heft and sturdy proportions of the glasses. We washed them with a heavy detergent, and set them in the “keep” pile. The “keep” pile now contained only the glasses and a phone book and was easily dwarfed by the “burn and/or exorcize” pile.

The glasses were stored neatly in the back of a cupboard until a recent party. Searching for more glassware for our alcoholic guests, I rediscovered the etched Crown Royal highball glasses. The memories came flooding back. The shower cap. The naked doodle. Signing away my left kidney.

I set aside one of the glasses for myself and fixed a drink. A white Russian. (The Dude abides.) As I swirled the drink in my hand, the clinking of the ice against the thick glass was purely musical. Lifting the drink to my mouth, the glass balanced perfectly in my fingers, allowing me to gracefully sip the “Caucasian” without a single ice cube touching my lips. I set the glass on the table with a percussive thump. I leaned back, scratched my chin and bathed in my debonair masculinity. At that moment, I was James Bond -- without the tuxedo and explosive cufflinks. Perhaps it was the vodka or the expired half-and-half. But when I looked into the cut-glass, as if into a crystal ball, the light glinting off the angled facets enchanted me. I felt warm and secure. And I wanted more.

I could have sought out more alcohol. Vodka and Kalhua were plentiful that night. But I did not. No, I went to seek out what I really yearned for: Crown Royal etched highball glasses. And where else to look, but on ebay?

To be continued...