There's nothing that can make me feel as impotent as when that tiny little screw holding my glasses together pops out. It can happen at any time, does happen at any time. Just yesterday, Friday night, while getting off the subway, I adjusted my specs without touching them (a little chipmunk, cheek-muscle thing I've picked up over the years) and zing! The screw goes flying, the wire frame opens up, the lens drops down into the sleet and concrete. What a way to start the weekend.

Normally when this happens, I would just go to my eye doctor, who happens to work directly across the street. His assistant, Gloria, a plump Jewish mother type will soothingly take my glasses and say, "Let me see what happened, sweetie." I tend to get extremely paranoid in public with my glasses off (I really can't see a friggin' thing) but she is so alarmingly comforting that, I admit, I have to stop myself from kicking off my shoes, sitting down on the carpet to watch "Voltron" and begin shouting, "what's for dinner??!!"

The doc is shomer shabbos, though, which means not only will I be unable to get them fixed this Friday night, but Saturday is out of the picture, too. So I stop at CVS to get one of those little fix-it cases they sell for a buck up by the cash register. It comes with a bunch of tiny screws, nose pads and a baby screwdriver. No instructions, but I'm pretty sure I'll know where to stick it.

I come home and, since it indeed is quite cold outside, my fanatical landlord has the temperature set on smelt. Were my pillow covered in iron I'd have a galvanized forehead in the morning. He does this, I know, so that if we should ever complain about anything else, he can whip out his "I no skimp on the steam" trump card. And skimp on the steam he doesn't. The problem is this: you can't wear clothes in my house during winter. Luckily, I'm usually alone, and, if I'm with a lady, hey hey, we ain't wearin' clothes for too long anyway, knowhumsayin'? But this particular night, I was hoping to just hang at the crib for a bit and then head out to meet friends, so I had no plans to undress just yet. And I've got this hang-up: once I take off my pants, I'm done for the night. If I take off my pants, there's gonna need to be a real incentive to get them back on, more so than just to see my stinkin' friends.

So, fully clothed in my Lakota sweatlodge of an apartment, I begin to tinker with these tiny screws. I don't have to tell you that they instantly rolled off the coffee table and onto the carpet. I also don't have to tell you that my carpet is a black forest of toenails, belly-button fuzzballs and, strangely enough, sesame seeds. If you ever run out of sesame seeds, come to my carpet and bring a comb.

These issues became secondary when I realized that even if I had the tiny screws, there was no way I could do anything with them. Why? Because without my glasses, I can't see. Like George Carlin once explained, you can't wash soap and you can't throw out a garbage can. Add fixing your glasses when you're blind to the list. Once I had the tiny screw in my sweaty palm, my hair matted down and brow beading, I spent twenty minutes squinting and prodding. There were a lot of close calls, but I just could not see the tiny hole. I tried a technique of holding the glasses in my mouth, looking with one eye through the good side, but this just got the remaining lenses streaked with slobber.

Eventually, I succeeded with the dock-up, and I then began to screw. I screwed and I screwed, but I couldn't seem to get everything to line up properly. I soon noticed that the initial dollar pack o' spex fix-er-ups had more than one size of screw. Good gravy, could I be jamming in the wrong size? I then tried to take the screw out, but my repeated righty-tighty movement had buried it deep in the hole. It was stuck for good.

I was able to wedge the lens in there, and if I held my index finger at my temple, the operation would stay together. I called my friend and baled out. I spent Friday night sitting on my uncomfortable couch trying to read a book. Every time I used my right hand to turn a page my lens popped out.

But the whole weekend wasn't ruined (not by that anyway). Somehow I was able to remember that I passed an eyeglass store every single day of my life on 31st Street. The chances of both local shops being shomer shabbos were nil. So I got up early this morning, threw on my shittiest clothes, and headed out before showering. My plan was to zip down there quick, get this taken care of, and then get back in time to watch "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly with Bob Abernathay" on Channel 13.

I bundled into this other store in my stanky-ass sweatpants, unmatching green sweatshirt with coffee stains on it, and my puffy John Goodman-esque winter jacket. Little did I know, I was entering babe central.

Behind the counter were six, I counted twice, six hot-as-hell Mediterranean broads between the ages of 19 and 27. I counted no customers. They turned to me as the door went ding, I must have looked like a deer (okay, fine, buffalo) caught in the headlights.

Like a bull I was drawn to the one wearing blood red. Her ample bosoms protruded like two sinful pomegranates. I was certain that these six ophthalmological wenches had to have a wrathful, Shakespearian father minding the store somewhere in back. Meanwhile, big red (and with the glasses I was seeing double) took my spex and asked me to "have a seat." Sucha sweetie.

I sat there without any visual aid, the Universe like a Van Gogh painting switched to the opening scene of what could be the greatest late night Showtime movie ever filmed. The remaining five sisters (yes, shut up, they may have been sisters) were consoling one of the youngest. She, only a blurry truffala tree of long black wavy hair in tight Astoria clothing, was concerned because she had been to a palm reader last night. The mystic told her that she was "going to have a hard year." Her black velvety shoulders slumped, and the other blurs of wavy hair and tight clothing rubbed her shoulders.

The Greeks still have the philosophy department cornered as far as I can tell. They were quick with calming words. "A hard year to some is an easy year for others." "A hard year means you're really living life, 'cause with the good comes the bad." "If you have a bad year now, things can only get better." "You have to go out there and prove this woman wrong!"

The saddened one, I shit you not, said, "Thanks you guys, you can be such great friends." I half expected Roger Vadim or Radley Metzger to rush out and call for another take. The worst part was, I couldn't see anything!! It was like those locked out dirty channels in hotel rooms!

Big Red came back and said, "here you are, sir." (So quick with a line, she is.) I decided to be a little goofy, despite my Harry Knowles get-up. I walked like a zombie and said, "I can't see you, where are you, speak louder." A chorus of girlish Greek giggles followed. I called out, "Marco!" I got back "Polo!" Big Red said, "Just look for the red shirt." As if I was looking at anything else.

I put the specs back on, and took another look at the one in the red shirt. Holy smokes she was incredible. Blonde and smiling, and she was wearing those special black stretchy pants they only wear in 718 area codes. I don't know which space-age polymers they are, but they're like a cross between spandex biking pants and English riding jodhpurs. I spend a lot of time thinking about them. Anyway Big Red has an ass that extends from here straight on into the next fiscal quarter. I spend a few seconds salivating, before I ask what I owe.

I know I owe nothing (eyeglass screws are like dialing 411 from a pay phone) so this just affords me an opportunity to keep the dialogue going. She waved me off, so I made some joke about remembering her in my will. The sextet of hotties in tight clothes all laughed, and with that, I did something totally unpredictable.

Okay, bullshit, I didn't do anything. What was a I going to do, chat her up in my stained sweatpants in front of five other girls? I went and got a linzer tart and a cup of coffee and came home and wrote this.