Unlike most of my corrected-vision bearing friends who had glasses growing up, I didn't get glasses until my Senior year in college - JESUS, has it already been six fuckin' years? Damn. Let me take a minute to gather myself before going on.
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Okay. Anyway. Despite the fact that everyone in my family has glasses (or at least needs/has had some sort of prescription) I never thought I - the "golden child" - would be a 'four-eyed loser'. So much for that grand hypothesis. As it turned out, my stubborness was inherited from both of my parents, much like their vision, and despite the fact that I couldn't read lecture notes for about a year, I fought the idea that my vision was fading. Clearly the projector was out of focus. Even though every other person around me was able to take copious amounts of notes without even looking at the paper in front of them.
It was sometime around "Winter Break" during my Senior year at UCSB that I made the leap and scheduled my appointment with an eye doctor. Who am I kidding, my MOM made the appointment for me. Anyway, in and out and a couple hundred bucks later I was out of Kaiser with a freshly purchased pair of Versace prescription glasses. Hell, if I was going to be relegated to wearing glasses I thought I might as well look like I have some sort of style. Needless to say, those glasses weren't the best decision for a college Senior...at UCSB.
After three or four weeks of waiting, I finally received my glasses in the mail. If I remember correctly, they were shipped to my parents' place, and THEN shipped to me. Anyway, it wasn't more than two weeks before I had: walked into the shower with my glasses still on; woken up from a party the night before on a rampage worse that Godzilla in Japan - flipping over furniture in hopes of finding my (now misplaced) glasses (FYI: I outsmarted my drunken self and put them in one of the shoes I was wearing that night); sat on them; bent them; dropped/scratched them, etc., etc.
Not everything about having glasses is all bad though. I can't count the number of times insanely good looking girls wanted to try-on my glasses. Whores. It was also nice to be able to read notes in class - summarily boosting my GPA back above a 3.7. Maybe that's why all the frog-eyes in elementary school got such good grades? They could actually read the fuckin' board! Tangents aside, me and glasses had a good run. Once I moved out to San Francisco however, I noticed that the frequency with which I was experiencing the less than stellar side-effects was going through the roof.
"Where are my glasses?" "Do you know where I put my glasses?" "Any idea where my glasses are?" I would ask in a still drunken haze. More often than not they were in my goddamn shoe again, but not always. And not always in one piece. Needless to say, in the matter of two years I've been living in SF full-time, I've spent enough money to feed some 3rd world country for a day or two - at least according to all those "Save the World" commercials that come on at three o'clock in the morning between those jack-off commercials for phone-sex lines.
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Fast forward to yesterday. I went to get an eye-exam and fitting for contacts. I went to this little boutique called Eyelevel in Noe Valley with a couple of Asian doctors that fixed me right up - of course they were Asian, I know, I know. So far I have been to three different eye doctors. All Asian. I guess it's either that or be a Ninja. I guess they both have their merits.
In addition to the eye-exam discovering that my 6 year old prescription was out of date - I told you, I'm stubborn - the doctor was quite impressed with my ability to figure out what 90% of 105 was without a calculator or scratch paper (it's 94.5 for those of you stumped out there), which happened to be the difference I owed for the exam. I'd go on with the Asian stereotypes, but this one failed miserably. After dazzling this doctor with my *amazing* math skills, we had the moment of truth whereby I was told to place the contact in my eye, take it out, place it in, take it out, and place it back in.
For those of you that don't have contacts, you have no fucking idea how miserable an experience this proves to be. First off, the doc tells me that I should hold my eye open with my left hand and place the contact in with my right. Sounds simple enough. WRONG! After about 2 minutes of struggling that feel more like 30, tears streaming down my face, and no contact still in my eye, I begin to get that feeling you get when you have wedged yourself somewhere just a little too tight and start to squirm and freak out because the only thing you are doing is wedging yourself in deeper and deeper. Needless to say, a deep breath was in order before I lashed out and slapped my little doctor straight across the room. As it turns out, it is MUCH easier to hold your top eyelid with one hand and with the middle finger of your other pull the bottom lid down while placing the contact in your eye with your index finger. A couple of tries later and I was in business.
From what the doc said, I'm not supposed to be wearing the contacts more than 4-6 hours a day for starters until I let my eyes adjust, and even after that, no more than 12 hours in a day. Therefore, I can't say the glasses are completely gonzo, but for the most part when y'all see me from now on I'm gonna be frame-and-lens free.
Now I just have to look forward to waking up asking, "Have you seen my contact lenses?"
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