Humor

How My Poor Eyesight Entertains the Masses and Mortifies an Optical Store Clerk

Notes on lost glasses and poorly placed pianos

I wish my glasses were this svelte. (Photo by Fernando Lavin on Unsplash)

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…