Vitamin Hope

I started wearing contacts when I was five. I have single vision and low visual acuity in my one sighted eye, so prior to the contact-lens phase, I sported massive, frog-eyed glasses strapped to my face at all times.

I’d like to report that the sensation of freedom relieved me – and it did. But it also gave me a healthy dose of fear. I required a high-powered contact lens, which meant that each delicate disc cost quite a lot. More than once, I recall accidentally rubbing the lens of my eye, enlisting my friends to help find it, then running home with the tiny treasure balanced on the tip of one grubby finger. Those contacts were so floppy! I needed help to put them in, help to remove them, and a whole lot of reassurance when they disappeared.

Because let me tell you, losing a lens was the worst. After I got older, I’d stand over the sink to remove my lens for the night. Occasionally, it would slip through my fingers, and poof – tumble right down the drain.

Oh, the clutch in my heart when that happened! Oh, the horror of telling my folks! 

We’d carefully remove the drain plug and peer around with a flashlight. If my dad was home and felt hopeful, he’d get under the sink and disassemble the pea trap, just in case. One time it worked, too. The lens had nestled safely in that humble, U-shaped bend, from whence we received it with all the fanfare of a Lazarus newly emerged from the tomb.

Although all my contact-losing escapades didn’t end so joyfully, I must have retained a scrap of that childhood hope. Recently, while changing the belt on our vacuum, I discovered a new diagram in the manual.

“No way!” I exclaimed. “This thing has a secret compartment!” The blue-printed picture depicted an easy-to-access chamber just below the machine’s bag. This space, the manual informed me, would collect all items too heavy or too large for the main receptacle.

“Do you mean to tell me,” I wondered aloud, “that 20 years of treasures have accumulated, right there?”

Eagerly, I pulled on the handhold. Anxiously, I carried the assemblage upstairs. From across the room, my teenage son’s gaze followed me. Everything around us grew silent.

“What could be in there?” I all but whispered. I gave the thing a gentle tap; then, with images of forgotten jewelry and priceless coins filling my mind, I began shaking it in real earnest.

“Here it comes!”

A small cloud of dust blocked my view. I held my breath while my mountain of treasure took shape.

One nickel, three pennies, and a few twisted nails.

“That’s it?” My heart sank. “Twenty years, and that’s all?”

My son Ethan, weighed in, guessing that my husband had already emptied it several times. But this provided scant comfort. I’d at least expected a bobby pin! I reassembled my machine, feeling bitter.

But the feeling could not last for long.

What have you discovered? A small voice repeated as my day recommenced. List out the treasures you’ve found.

I grinned, remembering the high-five with my son after my successful belt change. I chuckled over the likelihood that my husband had rescued countless coins through the years. Maybe enough to buy a new vacuum! I celebrated the simple pleasures, too: The moment of discovery, my sweet childhood memories, and the delicious anticipation I’d just enjoyed.

True, the compartment hadn’t contained all the treasures I’d hoped. But it had provided three pretty pennies, not to mention a nickel. And who knows? Maybe next time, it’ll give me something more. I can always hope, anyway. And that’s greatest treasure of all.