Yes. It's from the oral.

This thread is SO MUCH BETTER without photos.

You probably are tired before going to bed and don't notice how dirty they've gotten over the course of the day.

Or if could be the cats playing games. Set up a webcam to make sure.

Pollen?

As you were wearing them, they got dirtier and dirtier but in small inciments so your eyes compensated.

Then when you take them off, your eyes zero out so to speak and when you put them on again, instead of a gradual dirt increasing, Mt. Goo avalanches.

Science, baby, all science. Although the elves were a good guess.

I would have liked to go my entire life without being aware of the possibility of the existence of elf goo.

Yes, this does happen to me and I think Dagobert's nailed it.

They were dirty when you racked out; cats wouldn't mess with eyeglasses other than possibly to knock them on the floor (mine has done this).

I routinely clean my specs at least once a day (wash gently w/ fingertips under lukewarm tap water and a little liquid hand soap, blot 'em dry gently) and take them off when using the electric shaver or any mouth-care stuff, but by the end of even pretty sedate days, they're dirty. They'll pick up body oil, eyelash dandruff, fingerprints etc. as if by magic through the day, plus anything I'm cooking or working with. And since I wear one pair for normal activities, a different pair for extended computer work, and yet another for working out and dog handling, there's three times as much eyeglass-cleaning going on.

On preview: Seen Dagobert's same gradual-vs.-instantaneous phenom w/r/t perceiving dirtiness of windshield on a vehicle I hadn't driven in a while.

Do you have a significant other who wakes before you, gets up with the lights still off, and fumbles about the bedside table looking for his/her own spectacles, rubbing his/her greasy fingerprints all over everything vaguely glasses-shaped?

Because yeah, I do that all the time.

I often don't clean mine as often as I should, so when I take them off to do so, I am amazed at how clouded they are. That reminds me, I should probably do that now...

Hey, at least YOUR glasses didn't all of a sudden break while you were sitting at the computer day before yesterday and the lens rolled under the computer desk and it took you ten minutes to find it and then when you took them to the eye place they said they can't fix them but you can BUY a new set of frames at cost and because you had to pay off other bills this month you don't have the money to do that till later so you have to wait AND you have to go to Walmart for cheap frames anyhow but your husband is going out of town for two days and you can't drive because you CAN'T SEE.

*takes a breath.*

I want contacts.

No, but you ever do the Glasses thing where you wander round for ages looking for your glasses only to realise (after an inordinate amount of time) that you're actually wearing them?

I do that, and I only wear sunglasses.

If I ever catch an elf gooing on my glasses, he's going to be living in a poorly rinsed mayo jar for the rest of his vile little life.

I usually ignore most of the gunk on my glasses, mostly because the nature of my vision is that I can't see it that close anyway. It takes a lot before I clean them off, which drives Mrs. Plinth nuts, then again she can things things up close and not far away.

seanyboy -- they were hanging around my neck, and I'd just had a really exhausting 90 min. workout, yeah.

It doesn't happen every night or on both lenses - it really is smudge like - maybe D_W's elf got out of the mayo jar and just sat on my glasses. I know it's something I'm doing or touching, but I can't figure out what.

(I know, that's another set up for dano.)

This used to happen to me. Now I have contacts ;-)

yeah, stupid closed eye-lid grease.

Then I got LASIK.

Now it's just stupid gunky eye-drop residue.

Two thoughts:
1. You smudge them with your greasy human thumb when taking off or putting on?

2. At night you can't see the gunk because you're used to it and the light in the house isn't very bright, but in the morning, the streaming bright light of dawn makes it more obvious how gunky they are? This happens to me... Only in certain (bright, natural) light does it become obvious just how much gunk there is. This is nature's way of reminding us to wash them in the morning.