How My Poor Eyesight Entertains the Masses and Mortifies an Optical Store Clerk
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I wish my glasses were this svelte.
I left my eyeglasses at a La Quinta Inn in Fort Lauderdale.
This could be the first line of a bad country song if you just added “and my heart” somewhere in the middle, but alas, it’s not. It’s simply a sad tale about poor eyesight. Or rather, a tale about poor eyesight and a mortified clerk at the eyeglasses store who might never recover from witnessing, up close and personal, the abomination that is my eyewear.
Before we get any deeper into the story, you need to know that my eyesight is famously bad. I don’t typically go to parties, but if I did, my inability to see anything without corrective eyewear would be my go-to party trick. Picture me mingling with a group of snazzily dressed professionals in a spacious penthouse apartment with hardwood floors, high ceilings, tasteful crown molding, and a piano in one corner. I clear my throat, tap my wine glass with a fancy fork, and ask for everyone’s attention. I then pop my hard contacts out of my eyes one by one, moving the contact case an inch from my face so I can tuck them safely away. I blink a few times, look around at the blur of shapes and colors, stick my arms out like Frankenstein, and stumble around, bumping into people jovially before collapsing dramatically into the back of the Steinway with a discordant clatter, the lid of the grand piano crashing down on top of the upper half of my body leaving my black tuxedo pant-clad legs exposed, wriggling about in the air comically.
It would be hilarious.
If the topic of vision ever comes up in casual conversation, I pounce like the big orange cat that lives outside my house does on unsuspecting squirrels and birds. (It’s honestly a bloody mess around here lately, but let’s not get into all that now because I don’t want to lose the thread.)
“Did I just hear one of you mention glasses or contacts?” I might inquire, appearing out of nowhere like a phantom ready to wreck your conversation and life. “Well, get this, my prescription is minus 12.5, AND…(pause for dramatic effect)… I have quite a bit of astigmatism in my left eye and slightly less in my right eye but it’s still not great.” Then, I just stand there waiting for everyone to shake their heads in amazement before I hurl a smoke ball at the ground and disappear into the haze like a myopic superhero.
When I’m at the eye doctor and I remove my contacts, I love it when the optician assistant hasn’t looked up my prescription beforehand because when they sunnily say something like, “OK! Go ahead and read the top line of the chart for me,” I reply, all slyly like I’m the cagiest guy on the planet, “What chart?”
It’s funny because it’s true. I can’t see the chart. I can see a shape that could conceivably be an eye chart, but I can’t come close to seeing any letters or even the idea of letters. I must use subtle context clues — the optician assistant’s words, the fact that I’m sitting in a chair in an optician’s office, etc. — to determine what I’m staring hopelessly at is most likely an eye chart. Regardless, the “What chart?” line kills every single time.
After I lost my glasses in South Florida, which left me unable to see or function in any real way after I took my contacts out at night, I hastily made a trip to one of those eyewear chain stores that promise new glasses in 24 hours. The eye doctor I’ve gone to since I was literally a small child is located about an hour away from my house, so I opted for something quicker. As it turns out, it actually took about a week and a half to get my new glasses and my old glasses arrived in the mail before the new ones, but at least I got to spend an exorbitant amount of money. And I got to witness the poor eyewear store clerk’s horror when she first saw my spectacles.
I arrived at the store to pick up my glasses right when the store opened at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning because I didn’t have any time to waste. I pick up my first batch of children from school at 2:15, so I typically call a lid on the day at around 11. The clerk was the only person in the store other than me, but she still seemed frazzled. She apologized for the wait and explained that she was the only person on duty, which I had kind of already deduced since our voices were echoing off the floors and walls. Things were about to get much worse for her.
She grabbed the glasses from a drawer that seemed to roll out of the wall somehow, undid the rubber band that was holding a paper label on the glasses case, lifted the lid of the case, and… her face dropped. Because I had my contacts on and her body and face weren’t just smudges of color, I could immediately see the change. She went from happy to perplexed to downright depressed in a matter of milliseconds. She picked up the paper label from the counter and flattened it with her hands, pressing down hard with her palms like she was thinking, “If I can just get the creases out of this prescription I can fix this nightmare.” After she studied the very flat and creaseless paper for several seconds, she took a deep breath to compose herself, plastered a smile back on her face, and looked up at me.
“So, with the minus 12.5 prescription… and the astigmatism,” she began, the pain evident in her voice despite her best efforts to hide it, “it’s a little… difficult.” Her eyes squinched closed as she said the word “difficult,” and she looked down hesitantly at the glasses resting peacefully in the case like she was looking at a hamster corpse at an open casket hamster funeral. “But! With the polished edges and maximum thinning and anti-glare you selected, I think they look quite…” She paused here for a very long time, her eyes shifting up like she was hoping to find an acceptable word hidden somewhere in the back of her brain. “…Nice. Yes, they look… nice!”
It took us a while to get there, but she absolutely nailed the landing. During the short pause before the second “nice,” I could sense she was on the verge of tossing out a word like “stylish” or “fashionable,” but she just couldn’t make herself do it.
I contorted my face into an expression that I hoped sent the message that I did not blame her for my blindness. Something between a grimace and the smile a raccoon makes when it’s perched on the edge of a trashcan, getting ready to topple it over and feast on the decaying delicacies within. After my little facial spasm, the store clerk asked if I was wearing contacts, which was objectively a dumb question, but her fight-or-flight response was still going strong so I couldn’t blame her for panicking. I just said I was, and she launched into her canned spiel about trying the glasses out at home and coming back within some number of days if there were any problems. I nodded along without paying much attention because I didn’t really care how well the glasses worked. I knew that, both best- and worst-case scenario, they would be good enough to allow me to walk around my house at night without stepping on a bunny or falling into a grand piano. This level of functionality is my only requirement.
Later that night, I tried my new glasses on, and voila! I could see moderately okay again. I did have to remind my wife that she should keep her hands to herself because I knew the Coke-bottle edges of my frames were completely irresistible, but we all have our battles to fight.
It’s nice to be able to see again and navigate the world safely. If you need entertainment for your next event or social gathering, I’m back on the market. You provide the piano. I’ll do the rest.