I Once Was Blind

This could only happen to me. And to some other people.

My last pair of glasses hasn’t been great. I didn’t really notice how tight the frames were when I bought them two years ago, and there’s not really any way to bend them into a more comfortable shape. They are too tight at the temples, and I can’t do anything about it.

This gives me the occasional headache, and more devastatingly, it makes my sideburns look funny. I’m pretty sure this is why I don’t currently have a girlfriend.

Anyway, it was time to get new glasses. My normal doctor had moved, and so I tried out a new one. His office was next to the discount bread store, and so, I’d seen it for years. If he’d been in business so long, I figured, he must be good.

He may be good as a doctor, I guess. Other things were lacking.

I got in to see him an hour-and-a-half after my appointment was scheduled. The waiting room had one four-month-old Sports Illustrated and ten Cosmopolitans, all in Spanish (I guess I could have looked at the pictures). I read every word the SI--twice.

Then, I got in there (no apologies for the wait), and it was a fairly normal eye appointment. In an attempt to make up for the long wait, I guess, the doctor promised me that they’d have the glasses themselves ready by closing time (which was less than an hour away).

I went back to the waiting room and waited. Fifteen minutes later, they had my glasses ready. This seemed odd (especially considering their lateness on everything else), but I was happy. I tried them on.

And I jumped. It was horrible. The glasses kept knocking me cross-eyed, and they distorted the shapes of things. When you walked, the floor seemed to be sinking away. I mentioned this to the lady who had given them to me (and who had put the lenses in), and she said that was normal and that in five or six hours everything would be normal.

Things never felt quite normal though. And yesterday, two days after getting the new glasses, I was complaining about them to Mom and Dad and was about to call the doctor’s office and try to get a refund. Before I did that, though, at a whim, I put my glasses on upside down. I could see.

They had switched the lenses. The left lens for the right eye and vice versa. I called up the doctor’s and they acted as though that was a normal thing. Just bring them in.

It’ll be several days until I can bet back to San Angelo. Until then, I’m going to have to walk around the house wearing my new glasses upside down. That’s better than messed-up sideburns at least.