
I have mixed feelings about glasses – the optical variety, not the drinking vessels, they’re generally quite useful, although they have their own separate issues… like somebody very kindly left me a dead moth once in a glass of water I was drinking, and I have to be careful at my mother’s since Rocky, her dog, will cheerfully sample anything you leave within reach.
But anyway. Glasses. Spectacles. Face furniture. Nowadays they seem to be quite a chic fashion accessory, with various high-end labels available, and they also serve other purposes than to enhance or correct faulty vision, like filtering out blue light. Whatever…
I wear glasses for one reason and one reason only. I am incredibly short sighted. To the extent where I have bent down to pick up a piece of fluff only to have it sprout legs and reveal itself as a surprise spider. I have greeted people seen from a distance as good friends only to approach closer and find out that I have absolutely no idea who they are. Conversely, I have blanked people I have known for years until they are up close and personal… social distancing notwithstanding.
Shortsightedness coupled with absent mindedness can be entertaining – I have taken my glasses off to put face cream on, wandered off, distracted and forgotten where I’ve put them and been too short sighted to find them… I solved that problem by having tactical emergency glasses placed around the house at strategic key points, rather like fire extinguishers, so I can go to one of these points, collect a spare pair of glasses then return to search and locate my original pair…
My shortsightedness was first discovered at the tender age of four – I couldn’t see what the teacher was writing on the blackboard from my desk, so conveniently placed at the back of the classroom, so I had to get up, walk to where I could see the blackboard, memorise the chunk of writing, return to my seat and copy it down. Did wonders for training my memory but understandably irritated everyone else to the point where my my teacher told my parents. I have no idea why they hadn’t noticed, but anyway, off I went to the optician’s and my world was restored to clear and wonderful focus. I could see! Every blade of grass, every whisker on my cat’s face.
And then it began… “Specky four eyes!” and other imaginative insults since I was the only kid in the class who wore glasses. However, I persevered, as being able to see kind of outweighed the stigma, but it was interesting to see how the insults changed as I got older. “Men never make passes at girls who wear glasses.” Really? I’ve had my share in the past…
But I reached the age of 18 and made my first foray into the world of contact lenses. Again, fabulous to be able to see, although you do feel as though your eyes are very wide open… But I discovered too that contact lenses could present their own problems. Ever tried taking a contact lens out when you’ve been drinking? After clawing desperately at your eyeball for half an hour you give up and fall asleep only to wake up in the morning with it immovably shrivelled onto your corneal surface…
Back to glasses then. I have very specific design requirements when it comes to my glasses – I don’t like heavy frames, the colour has to be right, likewise the shape to hold the specially thinned lenses, and they have to withstand other outside forces too. My optician once asked me, appalled: “Are these teeth marks on the arms?!”
“Um, yes… the cat got hold of them while I was asleep…”
But my current optician is a lovely, kind and endlessly patient man, and my present pair of glasses had been recognised by him as the perfect pair for me. He put them carefully aside until it was time for my next appointment, whereupon he produced them with an air of quiet satisfaction:
“Samantha, I saw these and thought of you…”
You can’t see me – but I was nodding away as I read your blog. Yes, I had exactly the same experience with my eyesight starting to go at age 4; called Specky Four-eyes and the lot.
I like how you have spare pairs at strategic points around the house! I can’t see to walk at all without my glasses, so do remember to put them back on, but I have backs ups for when I drop my glasses and the lens shatters! This pair I have now were my most expensive to date. The lenses came from Japan! But hey, at least I can see.
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Try “plastic” or resin type lenses. In lil red dot we use those plastic ones and they do not break. Phew!
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Good idea…
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Thank you for the suggestion GH. Unfortunately I have severe myopia and plastic lenses do not have as high a refractive index as glass – where I can get 1.9 – which means the glass lens is thinner. There are other factors too, which all mean that glass gives me my best vision.
High myopia is described as around -6 dioptres. I’m -18.
However, I wear contact lenses when I go out, so I can look like a “normal” person. 😀
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Oh I see. Now I understand. Sorry to hear about your high myopia. Please be careful with glass eye wear then, as it breaks 🤗🤗
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Thank you GH. 🙂
And no worries – they only break when I drop them on the ground – or once when Little Monkey jumped up and bashed me in the face and knocked my glasses off! 😀
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👍👍😀 Forgot to add good luck in your search for a pet pooch!! Take care
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Lol – “You can’t see me ” was that intentional.. 🙂 Likewise with my glasses – the most expensive pair yet, I’m sure I keep my optician in designer label suits…
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Ah No it wasn’t intentional, but I do have a gift for this! 😀
Yep, I think my optician could drive a Ferrari on my contributions alone! 😀
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I wear glasses occasionally, Samantha. Sometimes I can see OK, and other times not very well. It’s the same thing when I wear the glasses, which are varifocals. I’m always looking through the wrong bit, the middle bit is meant to be the intermediary bit but is usually more blurred than my normal vision. The reading part’s OK but hurts my neck, and the distance part is OK until I accidentally look through the middle bit (rather than the top) where you would normally look through to see. When this pandemic’s over I’m getting them changed just for normal glasses. I can’t wait.
Name calling’s harsh, but then so are school kids. I hated my time there because of it, but loved the learning. Still, where would we be today without it?
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I had the same issue with varifocals and I think I might go back to normal ones…you end up holding things at arms’ length and still struggle to read them..although sometimes that could just be my writing…I am thinking of getting emergency contact lenses too as now we have to wear masks everywhere I can’t see anything anyway…looking at Life through a perpetual haze of mist…!
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Some would say things look better through a haze… but not I 😉
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Laughing along with you at your optometric travails, as I’ve experienced the very same. (Well, maybe not the cat teeth part — or the water moth.) Myopic as all get out, and teased mercilessly at school. But we foureyes can take heart and smug satisfaction that those childhood tormentors are all wearing trifocals now. Thanks for this today, Samantha, you made me snort tea out my nose, whereupon I had to remove my glasses for a good wipedown – and then promptly forgot where I put them.
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Always good for the sinuses…a Tetley sluice…but pleased you enjoyed the read lol! I refuse to give into the temptation of hanging a pair on a chain round my neck as I am usually wearing a cat too – Charlie is a shoulder rider and that in itself alone is enough to get a double take from the neighbours..!!
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Smart that you keep spare ones at strategic points 👍😀
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Lol thank you, a tactic born of desperation! 🙂 xxx
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Oh your lovely optician, though he knows he’s got a guaranteed sale when you come into store!
I’m sorry for your short-sightedness. I wear face furniture for blurry vision, eye-straight and astigmatism, not to be confused with stigmatism 😉
This part had me in stitches – “tactical emergency glasses placed around the house at strategic key points, rather like fire extinguishers” 😂😂😂 I’ll have to show my mother this post, she’ll love it. Then she’ll copy your wise idea because she always does this herself and loses them, then I have to hunt around to find them! xx
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Lol – glad to be of help to your mother as there is nothing worse than wandering blindly around picking up spiders and thinking they’re pieces of fluff… and vice versa… !
But yes, I am extremely lucky with my optician and I hope you are blessed with one like him 🙂 xx
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A surprise spider! Ugh. 🤢
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I’ll be honest…I’ve had nicer surprises…😢😂😢😂
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I have a pair that filter out the blue light. I really like them. No more eyestrain from the computer
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Oh right!! Lol – thank you for explaining what they do…I really had no idea…
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