Microscope
The Torture of Anticipation

I never waited so long, so hard, so intensely, and so insanely (yes, that would be the word), for anything as did I for my microscope.

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Every spring my mother received a huge mail-order catalog listing every conceivable item from kerosene pumps to Voiglander cameras to lipstick to toothbrushes to amazing toys and children’s oddly patterned socks. While this inch-plus-thick catalog was intended for the trade, i.e., not for the end consumer, somehow, and don’t ask me how, Mom had gotten past their inefficient applicant screening process and, as a result, once a year they bestowed this treasure of a document on a dear member of the public (aka Mom) and not long thereafter it would find its way into my eager hands.

Backed up into my favorite armchair with the catalog opened up on my lap, I would live in this thing for hours at a time, remembering from the last edition in what sequence the various marvels were listed. Clothes upfront, followed by underwear. I skipped this section through the early editions as it was pure boredom, but later perched curiously on it—and its scantily clad female models, modeling, yes, precisely, underwear—as puberty stirred in the wings.

After underwear came hardware, tires, tools. Then air rifles and guns, sporting goods, moving on into cameras and optical stuff. Toys in the back. Pages and pages and pages of toys. That was my early home. I would dream of having inherited millions so I could buy ten of everything I saw: trains, cars, games.

Looking back, I realize how rich I was then, reveling in all this wealth for hour upon uninterrupted hour. Only Mom’s eventual insistence that I eat, and she meant now—the food is on the table, Ulf—or do homework, or go to bed, would shatter these dreams.

As I grew older my catalog focus began changing, however. And while lingering in the underwear section on my way there (there’s a lingerie pun there) I’d spend more and more time among cameras and watches and radios, and then, early one summer day, it jumped up and bit me.

Hard.

A few days earlier, I had watched a television film about an amazing and tenacious scientist and since I always identified with on-screen heroes, I now knew that I was destined for scientific fame and greatness. After all, Alfred Nobel was a countryman. A no-brainer. And in this film, it was made clear ot me that in order to gain worldwide repute as a leading researcher and laboratory scientist you must have a microscope. Without it, you cannot dream properly. But with it, oh boy, you’re guaranteed a place in the annals of evolutionary greatness. And there it was as if answering some unstated prayer, staring up at me from the optics section of the catalog.

The microscope.

It was holy. It was wonderful. It had a revolving disk with three different magnifications built in. It had a mirror that could reflect either daylight or light from a small built-in lamp up onto the examined object from below.

It was perfect. And it was affordable. I checked with Mom, and, yes, I had enough money in my Postal bank book (with a little, or not so little, help from her), she said. Sure, she said. I had done well in school this year, so I deserved a reward. So, we ordered it.

Mom’s the best.

You could have led me up the golden stairway to heaven, opened the portals, and let me in, it would not have matched the euphoria that gripped and twirled this boy. The early summer had never been so brilliant, the sweet smells of the freshly mowed grass never so fragrant, the sweet lilacs never so sweet, the sky never bluer. All joys, expectations, future, and life in general had found focus and crystallized in this one object, this one door to greatness and happiness eternal: my microscope. MY microscope. On its way now.

My microscope.

The catalog told you to expect a seven to ten business-day wait before it would arrive, so naturally I prayed for a five-day delivery, hoped for a seven-day wait, and knew for sure it would be here in ten. These were long eventless days, meaningless days, since all that really took place was waiting. Well, yes, I did things, rode the swing, mowed the lawn, strolled the woods, ate, slept, and generally kept up the pretense of living, but this was just a shell going through the motions. My real existence was consumed by anticipation and waiting, waiting, waiting.

Waiting.

We lived out in the country a few miles from town and our mailman, who drove a regular car—a Volkswagen station wagon—delivered all mail, letters and small parcels alike, to our large mailbox a brisk five-minute (or not so brisk ten-minute) walk from our house. The microscope was too large, of course, for the mailbox, so what would arrive would be a postal arrival notice, directing the addressee (me) to bring the notice to the town’s post office to collect the package.

Our mailman normally came before one pm, but just in case he was early for some reason, by noon on any given day I had normally checked the mailbox twice. By twelve-thirty I would be there again, waiting for him to arrive. And then, once I saw his car, euphoria mounting.

Day five brought no microscope.

Day six ditto.

By day seven the mailman knew what I was waiting for, so it was with a shrug and a smile that he handed me our mail as if to apologize for the mail-order company's tardiness. Darkness replaces euphoria.

From the attic of delight to the basement of despair through the shaft of impatience all in an understanding mailman’s smile.

I placed the mail we did receive on the bicycle carrier, got on the bike, and pedaled back home, dejection emanating like heat from the body in one of those thermal infrared photographs. My mother takes one look at me as I hand her the mail and says she’s sure it’ll be here tomorrow. Well, what else can she say?

I suffer through the rest of the day somehow, and the microscope-less day after that, and on occasion may even, heaven forbid, forget about the microscope for an instance or two, swinging from a tree, or jumping into the water from the twenty-foot trampoline down at the beach. But the waiting is still there, covering my existence like a mist, clinging like a film. I am not fulfilled, I am only partial until that big missing piece of me arrives in the mail.

Every morning when sentience comes knocking and night slinks away out the back door, I am filled with the rush of anticipation even before I open my eyes. Today is the DAY! For sure. For sure sure. I go through the motions of dressing, checking the weather through the window, running downstairs for breakfast, and checking the time. Only four more hours to go now.

This ritual repeated, day after tortuous day, the apologetic mailman and myself exchanging glances, and he handing me our mail, me handing him my disappointment. It ruined early summer.

Three weeks passed.

Three weeks, as in twenty-one days—well, as in fifteen business days. By this time, however, my mood swings had narrowed. The morning’s joy was guarded, hedging hope with the probability that, if not today, tomorrow may in actual fact be the day.

I was not a joy to live with. One day we were at our summer cottage at mailman arrival time, the family enjoying summer but for my incessant inquiries as to when we were going back home. Mom wanted to return just to shut me up; Dad, stubborn as always, decided to choose this particular battlefield to prove a point, and he stayed (and the rest of us with him since it was his car and he was the driver and held the keys) until he was good and ready to return.

Lesson taught.

We stopped by the mailbox on the way home—no microscope.

At this point, my waiting had infected our neighborhood as well, and on running into anyone I was always asked if it had come yet and they all said they were sorry to hear that it hadn’t and that they were sure it would come tomorrow.

Four weeks. No microscope.

Mom called the catalog a couple of times but could only confirm that yes, the order had been received and no, that it had not shipped as yet.

Not shipped yet?!!

At some point, I gave up waiting. I began assuming, then knowing, that today was not the day.

We’re into week six when it finally does arrive, at this point almost as an afterthought. Yes, I was happy, relieved, but no euphoria to be found. I had used it all up.

I took the parcel delivery notice and bicycled into town to pick it up. Overcast, even a drizzle. Not cold. Not warm. A very blah day.

Yes, there was the package, my name on the label. I signed the notice as received and tied the package carefully to my bike’s luggage holder, and pedaled home. Mom smiled and asked if it had arrived okay and in one piece. Yes, to both questions.

I brought the thing up to my room and unpacked it. I installed the little battery to power the mirror illumination lamp. I pulled a strand of hair to examine the root. I adjusted the mirror. I looked. I tried the three different magnification levels, adjusted the lamp and the focus again and looked at that root some more, and some more, and some more after that, and that was that.

Still a blah day outside. And now, a blah day inside as well.

World fame did not threaten.

I played with my microscope on and off for another day or two but the truth is that the joy of owning my very own means to scientific fame had died a slow and pitiful death in the shadow of the terrible waiting.

And no, I never made world-famous scientist.

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