The title of the last post could also work for this post. Or: "New Glasses"

I got glasses when I was 15, during the week of fireworks tent. (Or around that time. I always remember fireworks tent.) Since then, I've considered them a necessary evil. I have hereditarily poor vision. (Is that a word?!) And, yes, I do like to blame most of what makes me me on my family: my sense of humor, my creativity, my preference to country living, my green thumb, my poor vision and teeth.... You name it, it's their fault. (All you biology buffs are sitting there going, "Um, duh? You think?")

But I digress.

Glasses! For a while now I've been kind of needing to get a new pair. My left eye is considerably worse (I'm telling you, it's all this time I spend in front of a computer screen blogging), to the point where the glasses don't really even help that side of my vision. Not significantly.

Mom's been planning on getting the family in for eye appointments, but we hadn't yet because there was no pressing need and then we were in the middle of moving.

Then I created a pressing need. All by myself.

By the way, my habit of misplacing things is also hereditary.

It happened last Thursday....

 

*cue "back in time" theme and imagine everything is hazy and wavery*

 

I was minding my own business, checking up on...stuff at the old house for Mom between work and errands before babysitting. Out of necessity, I removed my glasses and set them on the kitchen counter, next to my phone and keys. I finished my work and returned to my car. I'd forgot to grab my keys and had to return inside to get them from the counter. I was almost to the end of the street when I realized I didn't have my glasses. I turned around in the last driveway on the left and returned to the old house and the kitchen counter.

My glasses weren't there.

Cue 20 minutes of huffing and puffing and using the strongest language within my homeschooler vocabulary (which amounts to "stupid", a gross insult and very severe when I stoop to using it).

Let me digress briefly again.

My body's natural vent for any form of extreme emotion - be it fury or joy or frustration or sorrow - is tears. I'm ashamed of the fact, and whenever my body decides that it must resort to such a method to ease its suffering, I get more frustrated and cry more. The only emotion that doesn't result in a waterfall is a very specific sort of fed-up anger. In that case, I bite my lip and glare and huff like a mad bull. I think some people call this "fuming".

Back to the story:

So after ten minutes or so of checking every possible location in the house - and I hadn't gone far - and not finding my glasses, I called Mom. Who was out of town.

She told me to calm down. I cried that I was calm. Very gently, she asked if I'd checked my face. Blubbering and laughing at the same time, I confirmed that I had. I'm accustomed to discovering that the things I've misplaced are often in plain sight, so I checked my face and head with my hands and in my car mirror when I went out there to see if I'd actually brought my glasses with me in the first place.

Mom ran me through every possible solution. I checked in drawers and cabinets, under the stove and fridge, in the bathroom, in a couple boxes sitting in the entry waiting to go to the trash. No glasses anywhere. I ran my hand all over the counter in case my eyesight was worse than I thought and my glasses were right there in front of me. No luck.

In the end, Dad had to come bail me out. He'd been on his way already, but he came a little early and put his new training to use by doing a whole and systematic sweep of every area of the house I'd been in, and then up and down the street.

My daddy is my hero. Even though he didn't find my glasses.

So he had to drive me to and from babysitting. "Corrective lenses" are required for me to drive. I cried a little on the way, calling myself an idiot and the whole situation ridiculous. On the way home, I laughed miserably, but my tears were spent. And I felt oddly bereft. Mostly bereft of my liberty, because now I once again had to rely on someone else to take me where I needed to go.

Mom set up an eye appointment for me for Monday, and I waited.

On Saturday, Mom and I went to the house to do some last minute touching up. I was bent over a spot on the wall, paintbrush in hand, when Mom said, "Oh, look. What are these?" Instantly, I knew what she was talking about.

My glasses. On the windowsill.

How? I have no idea.

Long story short, we had to reschedule my appointment for Friday (as in, yesterday). Mom and I went in the midst of more errand running.

I did the little preliminary tests (that evil glaucomoa test...). Then Mom and I went searching for frames.

Apparently I'm not daring enough.

I wanted some color (my current frames are a dark maroon), but there wasn't much to choose from. I'd been thinking blue. The only blue available was a pair of what I call "bug-eye" frames. You know, the big round ones? Yeah, it's rude of me to say such things, but I can't stand that style. Just on me, mind you. Some people (like my mom) can pull them off, but I can't.

Mom insisted I at least try the pair. I didn't even look in the mirror.

I'm more of a squared, small frame kind of person. And no animal print or thick plastic frames. My current frames are wire, with the frames on only the top half of the lenses.The pair we settled on are wire, dark purple. The bows (as they are evidently called) are a light green between sage and olive and are kind of wide. Different than my first pair, but not drastically so. As daring as I cared to be.

After some more sitting around, I finally got to the actual eye exam.

Far better than how I remember the first one being.

There were countless "A or B" style questions while he flipped through pieces on that funny-looking instrument, and me trying to breathe as quietly and shallowly as possible while he waved his little light in my eyes and leaned in less than an inch from my face. (So unnerving, and something only a doctor could get away with.) Then, while he told me what he was "seeing" based on his tests, I couldn't see anything except purple spoltches, so I squinted and blinked and spoke as little as possible.

The doctor confirmed that my right eye was about the same but my left was worse. Then we were done.

I haven't got my frames yet. The lens technician (or whatever she was called) was out on lunch, so they didn't know if the frames I needed were available or if it'd take 7-10 business days to get them.

And, yes, I'm oddly excited. And thus concludes the tale of how I came to get new glasses.

I don't know about the rest of you but, aside from the glaucoma test, I prefer the eye doctor over regular doctors and the dentist. What about you?