Do you see what I see?

The great Dorothy Parker once said, "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses." Thankfully times have changed, and more than just geeks and nerds are wearing their glasses in public.











Recently I went to the eye doctor for a check up and a new pair of glasses. I get a kick out of when they sit me in the chair, remove my glasses, turn down the lights, and light up the eye chart.




Then they ask me what I can see. Are they kidding me? I'm BLIND people! You've got my glasses! I can read the E. That's it! The "E"! Then we go through that whole song and dance routine. Which is better? A or B? 1 or 2? As the doctor flips the little glass circles in front of my eye, making the eye chart blurry or clear. Now, I'm a very indecisive individual. So this takes me a long time to decide which one is better. And sometimes it's just a sliver of a difference. I start to feel anxious as I feel the doctor's frustration with me. Plus, I hate the whole closeness of the situation. He's in my SPACE, you know?

Okay, finally the examine is over and then I have to make another big decision. Which pair of glasses do I choose? Here's the thing - I take off my own glasses to try on the different frames - and of course - everything's a little blurry because, repeat after me, I'm as blind as a bat! Here's what I'm suggesting. I go into Lenscrafters or wherever. They sit me down at a computer station. I remove my glasses, they take my picture. Then my picture appears on the computer monitor, and next to it is a selection of all the different styles of frames. I just click on the frame I like and it magically appears on my picture. Wah-lah! I can see how it looks on me, WHILE I'M WEARING MY GLASSES! How easy would this be? Don't they do this in hair salon's with different hair styles? Why not with glasses? You know, I think I'm on to something here. I'm going to write to Lenscrafters and let them know my brilliant idea.

I switched to wearing glasses full time about 4 years ago. I had been a contact lens wearer for over 30 years. I needed them for seeing things in the distance. But then I started noticing that my contacts were making reading difficult because they were making the words smaller. Sooo, to solve that problem, I would put reading glasses on, while wearing contacts. Then my brain would shout, "HELLO! Make up my mind! Do you want to see FAR or do you want to see NEAR?" This caused headaches and frustration and finally I said, "Enough!" I went straight to glasses with bifocals and haven't looked back. I have the unlined bifocals so no one has to know that I'm old. Or at least my eyes don't give it away. There are many other clues to do that.

It's amazing what you get used to. I didn't get glasses until I was in 7th grade. So I thought everyone saw the same way I saw things. I was a clutz growing up - probably due to the fact that I couldn't see 4 feet in front of me! I always was walking into walls. I'd be talking, not looking where I was going, and my parents would yell, "Watch out for the..!" "Bam!" My father even wanted me to walk around with a football helmet on when I was little. I guess it never occurred to them that I had bad eye sight. Until that infamous day in 7th grade when they tested our eye sight.

I went to a Catholic school a long, long time ago. To test our eye sight they held up a poster of a house with several rooms in it. They asked me what was in one particular room and I replied, "What house?" Aha!

Sitting on my front porch with my new pair of glasses, I starred in wonder at the leaves on the trees. Wow! You mean trees weren't just green blobs on brown long stems? I could read street signs! Heck, I could even see the blackboard in school! I blame my mediocre grades in math on never being able to see the blackboard. It took me many years into adulthood to finally understand fractions!

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