This is the continuation of Glasses in The Park My name is Dakota Thomas, and when the events that I am about to describe happened I was almost 15 years old. I lived with my parents and 2 sisters in an old farmhouse just north of the city that was now in the middle of a new development. I had just graduated from grade 9 with honors and was going to be in grade 10 in the fall at Saint John the Baptist Senior High. I was very nearsighted and wore glasses with a prescription of -21D. And, although I had only been a glasses wearer for the past 6 months, I loved wearing my glasses. I would tell you how it happened to come about that I was wearing such strong glasses, but it is such an unbelievable story that you would not believe me if I told you. All I will tell you is that an old man gave me a pair of very strong glasses and he told me if I wore them for a few hours I could have my eyes tested and I would end up with the same prescription that was in the glasses. I didn’t believe a word he was saying, but he demonstrated to me that I could see perfectly when I was wearing his glasses, and then a couple of days later he gave them to me and I have worn glasses ever since. As I said, I am just about 15. My one sister, Janelle is 15 months older than I am, and she and my younger sister Eva, who is about halfway through being 13 gave me a pretty rough time about the strong glasses I now have to wear. Janelle is a fairly pretty girl with long dark hair that could be colored any color under the sun with that washable hair dye that girls these days use. Right now she is wearing it blue, but that could change to red or pink tomorrow. For a girl, she has a pretty foul mouth on her, although she is very careful not to let loose in front of our parents. I do get the brunt of it from time to time though. Our parents are both working full time now and Janelle, Eva and I have to keep the house clean when we are home during the week. I head off to the library almost every day as I like the peace and quiet there. Also it doesn’t hurt to not have my sisters arguing with each other in my presence. Eva often goes off to her girlfriend Jessica’s house, and Janelle doesn’t mind being by herself at home. We have a 4 bedroom house, so we each have our own room and there is an unwritten rule that we do not enter one another’s room without being invited. That is why what happened is almost unbelievable to me. I had been at the library from just after the library opened at 10 am. They know me pretty well there, and although the rules are that no one is to be on a computer for any more than half an hour, if there is no one wanting to use the computers they let me use one as long as I want to. I am prepared to give up the computer if it is necessary, but there are around 10 computers there and there is very seldom a time in the morning when there is a waiting list for computer use. It was the middle of July, and I came out around 3pm into nice bright sunshine. This was the only time I almost wished I wasn’t so very nearsighted as I would have loved to have a pair of prescription sunglasses. But my blended myodiscs cost my dad over $600.00 just a few months ago so I knew better than to ask him for the money to buy prescription sunglasses. It was about a 15 minute walk home from the library. I always look as I come through the park to see if the guy that gave me my first glasses is ever there, but as usual there was no sign of him. He had just disappeared into thin air, leaving me with a pair of very strong glasses and being very nearsighted. I have no complaints, but I sure would have liked to thank him and show him my new glasses. I think he would have approved of my choice. I arrived at the house and came through the front door. “Dakota, is that you?” Janelle yelled from upstairs. “Yep, I am home.” I answered. “Get the f__ck up here right away.” Janelle yelled with her foul mouth going full blast. I came up the stairs and into her bedroom. I gasped when I looked at her. She had, at some time, gone into my bedroom and had taken the glasses I got from the old guy in the park from my dresser drawer. And she was wearing them. “What are you doing with my glasses? You have been in my room. You know you aren’t supposed to go into my things.” I replied angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me that these g_d damned glasses would ruin my eyes?” Janelle snapped angrily at me. “Why didn’t you stay out of my stuff?” I retorted. “I wanted to see what the f__k you could see when you had them on.” Janelle barked at me. “And what did you discover? Could you see through them?” I asked. “I could see perfectly the minute I put them on. And the longer I wore them the better my vision was.” Janelle replied. “How long did you wear them for?” I asked. “I put them on right after you left this morning.” Janelle told me. “So, that is about 5 and a half hours of wearing them. It only took me about 4 hours before I had to get these glasses.” I responded as I counted the time on my fingers. “What the hell. You mean I am going to have to get glasses now?” Janelle said. “What can you see when you take them off?” I asked. “I can’t see a f__cking thing. Everything is just a great big blur.” Janelle told me. “I guess you are going to need glasses now then. And quit swearing at me. I don’t appreciate it.” I replied. “What am I going to do? I can’t wear these glasses and I can’t see a thing without them.” Janelle was crying now. “I guess you will just have to tell mom and dad that you went in my room and got out my glasses and now your eyes are ruined.” I told her. “They will be mad at me. They will yell at me.” Janelle said through her tears. “I am mad at you. You should have left my stuff well enough alone.” “Where did you get the glasses? “ Janelle asked me. I couldn’t tell her about the old man and about him giving me a choice. I also didn’t want to tell her that after about 6 hours of wearing them it would take at least overnight before she could see normally again. I was in the mood to punish her for going into my room, and I knew that if she wore the glasses until she went to bed, she would wake up to a massive blur in the morning. “I found them in the park. I put them on and I could see so well when I was wearing them I wanted to keep them on all the time. When I told mom and dad that my eyes had gotten bad I could not see a thing.” I said. “I put them on and I could see really great with them on so I left them on. Then I couldn’t take them off.” Janelle said. “When did you try to take them off? When you heard me come through the door?” I asked. She didn’t have to answer me for me to guess that I was right. Now all I had to do was convince her that she had permanently messed up her eyesight. If I could talk her into telling mom and dad that her eyesight had gotten really bad and she had asked me to let her try my old glasses on I might have a chance to make my sister as nearsighted as I was. She wouldn’t want me to tell them she had gone into my room to steal my glasses out of my dresser drawer, so there was a chance she would go along with my story, especially since she was really very nearsighted at the moment and would still be for a few hours after taking off the glasses. “What can I do” Janelle asked. “The best thing you can do would be to tell mom and dad that you realized you were getting very nearsighted and you then asked me to let you try my old glasses on to see if they would help. So I got you my old glasses when I got home from the library and you have been wearing them ever since.” I told her. That evening when mom and dad got home they were shocked to see Janelle wearing my old glasses. Janelle told them the story we had agreed on, and while they were a bit skeptical they pretty much had to believe her as she could see perfectly through the very thick biconcave myodisc lenses. Then she and I switched glasses and she could see perfectly through my new glasses as well. I was afraid to let her wear my new glasses for any length of time because I wasn’t sure how long she would have to wear the special old myodiscs for before they would permanently alter her vision. She liked my new glasses better, but I made her switch back with me and she wore the old glasses until she went to bed. The following morning, as I had anticipated, she had to put the glasses on before she even got out of bed. I was a little worried about calling and making an appointment for her with my eye doctor, because they would recognize my old glasses as the ones I was wearing when they tested my eyes. But I convinced her to tell them that she had broken her own glasses and she was wearing my old ones. Janelle was lucky. I called first thing in the morning and was able to get her an eye appointment for late the following day. Everything worked like a charm. Janelle needed the same prescription as I did, and they didn’t even blink an eye at the broken glasses story. The only thing that was said was that it was very unusual for a brother and sister to have exactly the same prescription. But the same doctor had checked both of our eyes, and he is the one that came up with the numbers. I made Janelle wear the old glasses for the next 3 weeks until her new glasses came in. She had taken the advice of the cute little optician that had helped me and had gone for the same blended myodiscs that I wore. She had chosen a little larger frame than I wore, but the blended myodiscs still looked really good on her. Since I had worn the old glasses for a similar 3 week period and had not had any change in my prescription since I started wearing my own blended myodiscs I felt that Janelle would now be a forever glasses wearer like me. She just wasn’t as thrilled about having to wear glasses as I was. It has now been a year since I got my blended myodiscs. Janelle has been wearing hers for around 6 months now, and she has resigned herself to the fact that she ruined her own eyes and will have to wear glasses for the rest of her life. She has been making noises to our parents about them getting contact lenses for her for her birthday. But I think dad pretty well put the kibosh on that idea when he said he had just paid out $600.00 for her glasses and she wasn’t going to get any money from them for contacts for at least another year. I sometimes look at Eva, our younger sister and I wonder if it would be at all possible to get Eva to wear the old special glasses for a day. It would be kind of neat to have all three of us kids wearing identical -21D blended myodiscs. But then I put that idea way into the back of my mind because it would increase the risks of Janelle and me getting caught. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. I was pretty pleased that Janelle made such a big mistake though. Specs4ever July 2018