Throughout my life I have had good eyesight, for which I was exceedingly grateful, although I didn’t realize that I was. I went about in happy oblivion as to the pain of bad eyesight, thinking that people who wore glasses wanted to wear them, wore them for fashionable accessories, or possibly were born wearing them.
Then when I was about fourteen I realized that things that were far away were fading slowly into nothingness. It scared me a bit when I realized that, but I was able to make myself think that it had always had been that way and dismissed the fact from my mind. I was able to ignore the fact for a long time, pretending that the fuzziness that was slowly creeping closer and closer had been here always and was nothing to fear. Then I arrived at the age when drivers Ed was to be undertaken.
I knew that you needed to have an eyesight test to get your license, but I didn’t know at what point in the proceedings it was done.
There was a summer drivers ed class that was about to start and my mom wanted me to take that one because it was only one month long, as opposed to the three months that it usually took during the school year. I needed to go to the sheriff’s office to get my permit before I took the
class, but they wouldn’t give it to me until the class was completed.
Mom took me to the sheriff’s office on the last day possible to get my permit before class started. Mom told me that she hadn’t had to take her eyesight test until she was getting her license, so they most likely wouldn’t make me do it for my permit. Under that false assumption I followed mom into the office, going like a lamb to the slaughter. We were greeted by a sour faced lady who made it seem like because we had come in it had ruined her day. She glared at me and shot several questions at me. What was my name? Weight? Age? Birth date? Why did I think that I could drive?
After she had written those down she looked up. We were almost done, she said. Only one more thing. She raised her hand and slowly, dramatically, pointed at a fiendish looking device that rested on the counter. It was a stout black box with a raised lens protruding from the top. It could only be one thing. Instantly I was struck dumb, and I was unable to do anything but stand there with shaking knees, open mouth, and an expression of horror on my face. It was time for my eye test.
I glanced at mom, who gave me an encouraging smile and a little push toward the miniature humiliation chamber. I took small steps, but the distance between me and the desk was gone
much too soon. There was but one thing to do.
I leaned forward to look in, and then pretended to trip. My efforts made the black box fall off the desk. I was bending my knees so as to get momentum with which to click my heels, but the lady leaned forward and caught the box with a wildly impossible grab, so I used the momentum that I was going to utilize in celebration to make it look as if I was trying to catch the box too by leaping over the desk. I landed beside the lady, who glared at me. “I know that trick.” She said. “Don’t try it on me. Now get back to your side of the desk.” I went with my tail between my legs, so to speak. She placed the humiliation console back on the desk, keeping a hand on the side to prevent me from having any more “accidents”. I crunched up my face and placed my eye against the lens.
My first impression of looking in was “my, what nice little blurs”. Then I had a bad thought. What if the blurs were the letters that I was supposed to identify?
“Um, are the letters here?” I asked.
“Yes.” Snapped the woman that I had come to think of as the grinch. “Tell me what you see.”
“Are you sure that these are letters?”
“Of course I am sure. Well, there are some numbers in the mix too. Now tell me what you see.”
I cleared my throat. “All the letters that I can see are… lets see what those are. Okay. I-m-p-o-s-s-i-b-l-e.”
There was silence. I looked from the grinch to mom, trading every few seconds so that neither of them could hit me from behind. The grinch coughed. “I am sorry to say that I can not grant your request for a permit.” She didn’t look at all sorry, judging from her sly smile. “You have to pass the eye test in order to get a permit.”
Mom sprang into action. “Can you save the info you have?” She asked. “I am going to go get her some glasses.”
“We are closing in two hours.” Said the grinch. “You have until then.”
We left the office at one million miles an hour. Mom had me stuffed into the car and was halfway to the nearest Wall-mart before I realized what was happening. I let lose with a wail. “I can’t get glasses!” I cried. “Glasses are for sissies!”
Mom looked at me out of the corner of her glasses and didn't say anything.
I went into the store willingly enough, but when I saw the eye testing center I lost my nerve. “Hey mom. How about you just go in and buy a likely looking pair of glasses and we hope they work? I don’t want to be seen in there.” She didn’t respond. “Can I go inside myself then?” I asked, preparing an escape route in my mind. She didn’t respond. So I changed to different tactics. I tried the squirm, but mom’s hand was clamped on my wrist too tight for that to work. I could see that she was not in a mood to let me off the hook. Desperate situations call for desperate measures. I combined two of the best getting away moves, the flop and the scream. I pretended that I was a raggedy Anne doll, and acted accordingly, falling in a heap on the floor, and let loose with an anguished wail at the same time. Mom was shocked, but not enough to let go of my arm. “Get up!” She commanded. I was still pretending that I was the raggedy Anne doll, and raggedy Anne dolls can’t hear, so I ignored her. She prodded me in the ribs with her toe, and being incredibly ticklish I squirmed away from her, still on the floor. She continued poking me in the ribs so I squirmed in a circle around her, because she still had my hand, and she kept poking. Finally I could stand it no longer. Therefore I let to my feet and dashed away at top speed, but mom made a lucky grab and snared handfuls of my hair. Thus was I dragged shamefully into the pit of despair, or the eye testing center. At the last moment I grabbed a red marker off of a nearby shelf and scribbled all over my face, thereby preventing anybody from recognizing me.
When we got inside mom pushed me up to the desk. “She needs glasses.” She explained briefly. A blond lady who was smiling too big handed me a clip board. “If you could fill out this information please, then we can start.” She said, looking at my scribbled on face weirdly.
I took the clip board and scanned it over, noting that the questions were the same ones that the grinch had asked me earlier. I filled it out with shaking hands and handed it back.
The blonde lady took my hand and hurried me over to a line painted on the floor. She instructed me to stand with my toes on the line and cover one eye at a time with a device that looked like a magnifying glass without the glass, and red plastic instead. I did so. Then I looked at one of those eyesight charts to see what I could see.
While my eyesight wasn’t up to par, it still wasn’t awful. I could see up to the fourth line of letters with both eyes and the fifth with one. Smiley took notes the whole time.
When I was finished I was ushered into a small, dark, room. Smiley sat me down on a wooden bench then sat down herself, opposite me. She told me too look in a black box with a lens that looked like the one earlier that day, only bigger. I placed my eye on the eyepeice, expecting to see the blurs that were supposed to be letters, but was pleasantly surprised to see a picture of a happy little farm, with fields of wheat and a red barn. I opened my eye wider to see all, and right at that moment a sharp puff of air proofed into my eye! I jerked my head back and looked at smiley, who was smiling. “Sorry,” she said. “Put your next eye up to it.” I did so, but with less trust than I had the first time. I squinted at the farm instead of gaping.
“Can you open your eye as wide as possible?” Asked smiley. “I need you to, otherwise it won’t work”
I wasn’t sure what wouldn’t work, but I opened my eye wider. The air proofed into my other eye! I jerked my head back again, this time with more force than before. Smiley giggled, but got herself under control quickly. Clearly she enjoyed this part of her job. Or maybe it was the fact that I had red marker all over my face. Then she looked at some part of her machine and looked puzzled. “Hmm,” she muttered. “The readings are supposed to match.” So we had to do it again. And again. Ha!
Then I entered a room with a creepy little eye doctor. He hopped around the room, holding glass things up to my eyes, firing questions at me, peering into my eyes, and telling me the reason that I had bad eyesight was that I never blinked. So THAT was the reason! Silly me, I should have known that!
After I emgerged with the clipboard smily took it from me. Then she told me to go learn to put in my contacts. The man that taught me looked just like Smily, exept that he was a boy. He beamed at me, handed me a package of contacts, taught me how to put them in, (Which only took a half hour, bleh) and sent me on my way with a smile. Then I picked out my glasses, mom filled out the bill, (I was kind of amazed that they could fit that large of an amount on one piece of paper) and we walked out into the sunshine. I kissed the sweet ground, which embarrassed mom, seeing that we were in a wall-mart parking lot, and we got in the car.
Back at the Sheriffs office the Grinch wasn’t too happy to see us, but I took the eye test. Miricle of miricles, I could see! The blurs had shapes, and nice crisp outlines! I passed with ease, got my picture taken, and skipped outside.
I spent the whole way home wondering if the liability of having glasses was offset by the fact that soon I could drive. I couldn’t decide.
