What happened to Dave last fall when his cell phone bit it and he entrusted his eyesight to discount wholesale professionals? You're about to find out.
Part 1 - read below
Part 2

The Eye-man Cometh

See, 'cause it's a play on "The Iceman Cometh," . . . you get that? That's what we headline writers call 'clever as hell' as we pump our fists in the air. Booyah. (part 1 of 2)

Oh calamity and damnation. The bastards are finally on to me, and my cellphone is no more. I am now only reachable via my much less fabulous and decidedly unmobile home telephone. Death and drek. Without a cell phone, my hipness quotient has decreased 10 percent...perhaps more...but I shall try to make up for it in other ways by, for instance, wearing a Franz Ferdinand t-shirt or inventing a new Red Bull drink by mixing it with absinthe. My usage of the phrase, "that's hot" will also increase 20 or 30 percent. So consider yourself warned.

I can understand the exclamation point after "DENIED," but I thought the "you suck" in parenthesis was a bit harsh. Zounds, look at that beautiful hand. I should've been a hand model.

I had gotten this phone via a friend who in turn received it as a comp from a trade show. Finding himself with one too many phones, he gave it to me. The bonus was that it had service. Free service. Even when the company left a message saying service would be discontinued at the 6 month mark, the phone, arming itself with a mystical power greater than one of the world's leading telecommunications providers, flouted the wisdom of its corporate masters and continued to work. For three years. So it is with great regret and deep sadness that I say 'rest in piece' to my beloved phone. And goodbye to the freewheeling lifestyle afforded to me by said mobile machinery.

This is a hell of a way to start the morning, or ahem, early afternoon, as it were. Ah, life. I shall have to find the inventor of 'life' and have him hanged.

It's time to go go go, and I'm off to get an eye exam. The DMV sent me a friendly note informing me of the need for an assessment of my ability to read the alphabet. I considered penning a lengthy letter urging for the concomitant administration of politeness exams with the eye test for the motorists in our over-caffeinated society, but resolved my time be better spent hunting for porn. Without health insurance (haven't had it for years—where's socialism when you need it?) I needed to find a cheap eye doctor. I use glasses for reading, writing and porn-hunting. Not having seen a doctor in four or five years, it was probably time for an eye check-up anyway. Lo! I discovered I could get both an eye exam and new glasses at the same place I bought my giant bags of frozen chicken breasts and industrial drums of writable CDs. I decided to pursue my ophthalmological needs at (cue drum roll) CostCo. Is there nothing they can't do? The only catch was I had to get three exams at the same time. Curse their bulk shopping ways!

I know what you're thinking. Not because I'm a mind-reader, but because I too possess a modicum of common sense. Entrust warehouse inventory professionals with my eye care needs? Indeed, if an embittered administrator at the DMV was qualified to put me behind the wheel of a two ton chunk of plastic, steel and stereo equipment, then surely the cost-conscious, wallet-friendly folks at CostCo can handle a minor medical procedure.

Content with my decision to wrangle me some warehouse medicinal goodness, I shamble up to the counter and . . . hey, they have an actual secretary. Wow, just like a real doctor's office. There's even a magazine . . . well, just a CostCo circular, but it FEELS like a magazine. The sign outside says, "no appointment necessary," so naturally the first words out of the secretary's lips are, "would you like to make an appointment?" She flips through a date book. "We can fit you in at . . . " Fit me in? May I direct you to the sign outside your make-pretend, Fisher-Price doctor's office? But then I remember my modal logic. Lessee, 'no appointment NECESSARY' could still allow for 'appointment POSSIBLE.' Curse you, Saul Kripke! "About 20 minutes," the secretary interrupts my misguided 'possible worlds' theorizing. Hm, I can deal with 20 minutes. Perhaps I misjudged you, CostCo. Perhaps affordable health care for all is a realizable dream nevertheless.

Behold: Fido, my faithful shopping cart. Look at the stunningly perfect sky. Never mind the fact that this photo was taken months after this incident took place.

I'm not stupid. I had my jumbo shopping cart idling outside the office the entire time. And not empty. Those cart vultures seize upon empty carts like a dead zebra in the Serenghetti. I filled it with a few items before checking into the eye place, and I was happy to see my cart waiting patiently like a loyal puppy. I shall call him Fido, which, I was once told, is a reference to the latin word for fidelity. Come, Fido, we have shopping to do. In bulk yet. But hey, no rush. Twenty minutes is a lot of time when you can't fill up on any frozen goods. No sense pulling a cart full of defrosted meats and cheeses after my exam. Non-perishables only, I say. But first, I decide to loiter around the media aisles—books, DVDs, CDs and dog calendars.

Up next: Disaster strikes! Fido is less than faithful.