When I was 4 years old my cousin Grace, who was 8, got her first pair of glasses. I was fascinated by the way they changed her appearance, and it was intriguing to me to look through the sides of them from behind to see how they made things appear smaller. Grace even let me put them on and see through the lenses one time, and I was very surprised that I could focus perfectly when I had them on. I remember that this made me think that if I could see so well when I was wearing them, maybe this meant that I might need glasses. I am pretty sure I was in kindergarten when Grace got her next new pair of glasses, so I was likely almost 6 years old. When she got her new glasses she also got a pair of sun glasses. She was over at our place one weekend with her mom and dad, and when she left she forgot her sun glasses which I found and hid away. When my mom and dad asked me if I had seen Grace’s prescription sun glasses I told them that I hadn’t, and after that every chance I had I managed to wear them without getting caught. I just loved to have the prescription sunglasses on my face and I hoped that one day I could get a pair of glasses of my own. My first grade teacher wore glasses, and I really liked the appearance of them. To me they looked nice and thick, and when you looked at her directly you could see how they shrunk her face inside the lenses so you could see a clear area beside her face through the lenses. I watched her all that year, again wishing I could wear glasses. I still wore Grace’s sun glasses any time I possibly could, but I didn’t see any better with them on than I did without them. I did read a lot, and I spent a lot of time indoors either watching TV or coloring in my coloring books, but of course I couldn’t wear the sunglasses inside. By the time I was in grade 2 I was convinced that I could see things a lot clearer when I had Grace’s sun glasses on. I couldn’t tell my parents this though but I did manage to scrunch up my eyes and squint at the blackboard whenever I had to read anything for the teacher that she had printed on it. It took a while but she finally noticed that I seemed to be having trouble reading the board and she sent a note home to my parents suggesting that I might benefit from having my vision checked. My mother was adamant that there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with my eyes, but my dad was willing to take me to see an eye doctor. When I had my eyes tested the eye doctor told my dad that I was fairly nearsighted for my age and I would benefit from wearing glasses. My dad let me get my glasses from the optical store at the eye doctor’s office and he helped me choose a frame and they ordered me a pair of glasses of my own. I was more than thrilled. It took the optical store a few days before my glasses came in, and when they called my dad he took me back there to get them. The girl brought the tray containing my new glasses out from the back room and she took out my new glasses. I looked at these glasses when she took them out of the tray and held them up, but I couldn’t believe that these were my glasses. They were the glasses I had dreamed about having to wear, but they were so thick that it just wasn’t possible. There must have been some mistake, but I wanted to wear these glasses so badly I wasn’t going to say a thing. She opened the legs and placed the glasses on my face. I struggled a little to be able to see, and finally I managed to sort of bring things into focus. She checked the fit of the legs behind my ears, and asked me how they felt so I told her they felt fine. My dad was shocked at the thickness, but other than asking the optician if they were really my glasses he didn’t say another word. Dad and I walked out to the car, and as we got in he asked me if I could see all right. It was a struggle to keep everything in focus, but I managed and I told him that I could see very well so he just drove me home. When my mom saw me wearing my new glasses she had a fit. She just couldn’t believe that my eyes were as bad as the thickness of the lenses indicated they were. But of course I told her they were great, and she had no reason to not believe me. I wore my glasses while watching TV that evening, and when I went to bed I did take them off and lay them on my bedside table once the lights were turned out. When I woke up the next morning I reached out and unfolded my glasses and put them on before I had even opened my eyes. I dressed for school, came down and ate my breakfast and then walked to school. The other kids in my class were surprised at how thick my glasses were and some of them wanted to try them on, but I would not let anyone do that. After spending the whole day in the classroom wearing my glasses it was much easier to focus my eyes on things in the distance, but it was really hard to see things that were up close. By the time I had worn my glasses for a couple of weeks I was finding it really easy to see things that were off in the distance, and my close up vision was now getting a lot clearer. My dad asked me if I liked my glasses and also how well I was seeing and I told him that my glasses seemed perfect. Apparently he had gotten a call from the optical store and they told him they had misplaced a pair of glasses, but he had told them that I had not had any problems that would indicate that my glasses were not the correct ones for me and that I seemed to see just fine wearing my glasses. I wore these glasses for the rest of my year in grade 2. By the time the summer holidays came along I felt that these glasses were just right for me. I loved to look in a mirror and see how my eyes were made so much smaller by the lenses. And I loved to see the clear part in the lenses that showed how much the lenses shrank my face in. Now I could read everything really close up, and I had even asked my dad to take me back to the optical store to make the legs fit tighter behind my ears, because I hated to have them slip down on my nose. I was really happy to be wearing these glasses. During the summer after I finished grade 2 my parents and I went to visit my cousin Grace and her parents. Grace was now 11, and she had also gotten stronger glasses. She had never seen me wearing glasses and she was really surprised at how strong and thick my glasses were. She tried my glasses on and she could just barely make her eyes see through my lenses. Since I had been able to see so well when I was wearing her old sunglasses, I now knew for sure that there had been something wrong when I had been given these glasses by the optician. But I loved my glasses and I was glad they were so strong. The year I was 8 and in grade 3 the strong glasses I was wearing seemed to be just perfect for my eyes. I had absolutely no problems seeing anything I wanted to see as long as I had them on my nose. But if I took them off it was a different story. Everything turned into a big blurry mass and I couldn’t wait to put them back on. The next year when I was in grade four I noticed things were not as clear as they had been before. In the spring, just after March break I was running outside at morning recess, and I slipped and fell. My glasses came off my face, and somehow I fell on them. The teacher who was monitoring the yard helped me to my feet, but one of the lenses had come out of the frame. My frame wasn’t broken but it was twisted and the one lens had popped out. With only one eye able to focus and the twisted frame I was having a lot of trouble. The recess yard monitor was Ms. Collins, who had been my grade one teacher and had worn the thick glasses that I had often admired so much. She knew how much trouble I was having focusing and she helped me into the school and took me to the teacher’s room. She got her spare pair of glasses from her purse and she let me try them on. I could tell that they were stronger than my own glasses, but I could easily force my eyes to see through them, and things really were a lot clearer than they had been with my own glasses. I then told her that they seemed to be very close to my prescription and I could now see much better than I could with my own glasses. She let me wear them until I was able to get my own glasses fixed, and I made sure I kept wearing them for more than a week. When I got my own glasses back I then found that everything was quite blurry with my own glasses, and I told Ms. Collins that I could hardly see through my own glasses anymore. She was wonderful. She allowed me to keep on wearing her spare glasses until I was able to get an appointment with the optometrist and get my own new glasses. Of course my parents saw that I was still wearing Ms. Collins glasses even after I had my own glasses back. My mom was really upset when I told her that I couldn’t see clearly through my own glasses anymore, but all my dad said was that he would make me another appointment with the eye doctor. It took a couple of weeks before he was able to get an appointment, and when I went to see the doctor I thought there might be too many questions asked if I wore Ms. Collins glasses, so I wore my own, even though things were really blurry now with them on. The girl in the doctor’s office took my glasses and she used a machine to read the powers of the lenses. She then gave them back to me and I could see her looking at the file folder that she had in her hand. Then she went to the girl at the reception desk and she talked to her for a bit. Then she came back and had me follow her into a little room, where she put me in front of a machine and had me remove my glasses again. There was a country road and a field with cows in the machine and the cows got blurry, and then clear again. I could tell when she was doing my left eye, then my right eye, and then she did both eyes together. I was pretty sure I knew what the little conference had been about when she and the receptionist had been talking. I was willing to bet that my prescription in my files was so much weaker than in the glasses that I came in wearing, and I just knew that they had now realized that I had been wearing the wrong glasses for over 2 1/2 years now. I was also pretty sure that they had had an ah ah moment when she read my glasses prescription, and that she and the receptionist now knew what had happened to the glasses that had been misplaced. She took me to a little room and sat me down in the chair that had the big machine with all the lenses in it. She let me keep my glasses on until the doctor came in, but even with my glasses on I could not read the letters that were projected on the wall in front of me. It took about 10 minutes or so before the doctor came in, and he was quite efficient. He had me remove my glasses and then he brought the machine with the lenses in it over in front of my face and he had me put my chin on the chin part and my forehead had to touch that one special place. Then the machine started to make funny noises and the lenses were quickly changing in front of my eyes. Finally they stopped and he asked me if I could read the line that was projected on the wall. I could almost read it, but I told him it was still blurry, so the machine made a few more clicks. This time it was better, but I told him things were still not that clear, so the machine made a couple more clicks. Now the letters were perfectly black, and I told him they looked fairly clear. He increased the power of the lenses a little more, and I told him it was better, so he increased them even more. Now they had started to get a tiny bit blurry again, but I told him that was great. He checked each eye separately, and I was able to overcome a little bit of blur to tell him that everything was really clear. He checked again with a red lens, and then a green lens and I told him that the red looked the best. Finally he seemed to be satisfied and he made up a funny frame with lenses in it and asked me to wear them for a while out in the waiting room. He took me out to join my dad, and he told my dad that my eyes had gotten a lot worse. He didn’t say a word to my dad about the fact that I had probably been wearing the wrong glasses for the past couple of years, and I certainly didn’t say anything. I was thrilled to be getting even stronger glasses, and I hoped that my new glasses would be even thicker than my old ones had been. After I wore the trial glasses for a little while the girl at the reception desk came over and asked me how my vision seemed. I told her that things were pretty clear, but the glasses my teacher had lent me made everything even clearer. She asked if I had those glasses with me, and my dad took them out of his pocket. I think she knew that I would be wearing those glasses while I waited for my new ones to come in. She took them over to the lens reading machine, and when she came back she asked if I minded if she took them in for the doctor to look at. A few minutes later she came back with the glasses in her hand. She took off the trial glasses and slipped Ms. Collins glasses on my face. They were really easy for me to wear now, after having had the trial frame and lenses on my face. She told me that I should keep those glasses on and that the doctor would like to see me again as soon as he could free himself up. Dad asked how long that would take and she replied between 15 and 30 minutes, so Dad asked if I could stay there while he went over to his office for no more than an hour. She told him that by the time the doctor gave me a quick recheck and I ordered my new glasses it would likely take at least that long, so dad left me at the eye doctor’s office. I had found a movie star magazine I was interested in so I spent the next 30 minutes reading some of the articles. As I usually did, I brought the magazine pretty close to my nose to read. I think this time the eye doctor set the lenses in his machine to be pretty close to the prescription in Ms. Collins glasses. He changed a few lenses around as he asked me which was better, and finally he did the red green lenses again. Once more I chose the red lenses as giving me the best vision. He gave me a slip of paper with some numbers on it, and sent me out to see the girl that worked in the optical store part. Her name tag said Judy, so I figured that was her name. “With your new prescription we are going to need the same high index lenses that are in those glasses so that your new glasses will not be too thick.” Judy said. “Are they really expensive?” I asked. “Well, they are a bit more expensive than the regular plastic lenses, but your glasses would be terribly thick with the regular ones.” Judy answered. “My dad doesn’t have much money so I had better get the cheapest ones. I don’t mind if they are thicker.” I replied. “I had better find you another frame then, because the cheaper lenses will really be quite thick.” Judy said once again. We searched for another frame and she found one that would fit my face and would take thicker lenses. It had wide sides to sort of hide the thickness and was in sort of a rectangular shape. I liked it a lot because it fit really tight to the bridge of my nose. We had pretty much finished when my dad came back, and Judy attempted to convince dad that he should buy me the thinner lenses, but dad just asked “What do you think pumpkin?” and I told him I didn’t care if my glasses were thick as long as I could see. It took a little more than a week before my glasses came in. Judy was correct in telling me that they would be thick, but I didn’t think they looked too bad. The front of the lenses were dished in a little bit, and the edges were about a half inch thick. The frame size was a fairly small 49-18 and the earpiece length was 130. When she put the glasses on my face and I could see myself in the mirror I liked them a lot. The frame was black, but the side of the frame had all sorts of little holes in it – sort of what my dad called expanded mesh, and this continued onto the temples. There was a neat design on each temple that kind of looked like 2 trees growing together and the inside of the frame was an off white. When these glasses were pushed tight against the bridge of my nose I could feel my eye lashes touching the lenses as I blinked, but I kind of liked that. The amazing thing was that I could see perfectly with hardly any effort at all. Because I like thick glasses so much I know there is something wrong with me, but I just loved these glasses. When we got home and my mom looked at me wearing my new glasses she pitched a fit. She told my dad that he should have bought me contact lenses. But dad told her that it would have cost too much to buy both glasses and contacts and while I could go without contact lenses as long as I had glasses, I couldn’t go without glasses if I just had contacts. I don’t think my mom likes thick glasses at all because she was having a hard time with the fact that my eyes were so bad. I wonder what she would have said if she had known that the reason my glasses were so strong was because the optical store had given me the wrong glasses originally. They never admitted that to my dad or I, and my dad didn’t have a clue, but I was pretty sure of it. I know that they could never have known that I was the perfect person to have made that mistake with and they were probably hoping beyond hope that their mistake would never be found out, because my parents could have sued them for big money. I took the glasses Ms. Collins had loaned me back to her the following day. She told me she was sorry that my new glasses had to be so strong, but I told her I didn’t mind because I could see really well when I was wearing them. She told me that my attitude was a good one to have, and that it would do me well to keep that attitude no matter how much teasing I had to endure. I told her I had never been teased about the thickness of my glasses by anyone, and her response to that was “You will be.” I wore these glasses every waking hour for the next 3 years before I noticed that things were becoming a little fuzzy, especially in the late afternoon. I did not want to get new glasses because I knew my mom would harp at me about getting contact lenses. I had no interest at all in wearing contacts, and even though Ms. Collins had been correct about some people teasing me about my thick glasses, I really didn’t care. The teasing quit after they saw that it didn’t bother me at all. I had finished my first year of Junior high and was going to be in grade 8 the following year. I managed to make it almost halfway through the summer before I told my parents that I needed new glasses before school went back. As usual my mom didn’t want to hear about my eyes getting worse, but dad went ahead and made me another appointment with the eye doctor. As dad and I headed out the door for my eye appointment my mom’s parting words were “If she needs thicker glasses make sure you get her contacts.” “I don’t want contacts. I like wearing glasses.” I replied. I knew I had been having trouble seeing things in school before the summer, but as I rode in the car with dad I could tell that my eyes had gotten really bad over the past few weeks. I had been doing a lot of reading and computer stuff ever since school let out. It worried me a little, because I knew that my glasses would end up being even thicker, but I decided I didn’t care and I would just ask my dad to get me the more expensive lenses this time. When we checked in with the receptionist after arriving at the doctor’s office she mentioned that I had grown quite a bit, and that it wasn’t surprising that I might need new glasses. I had not known that sometimes kid’s eyes grow longer during puberty and they get more nearsighted. She also mentioned that because my prescription was so strong it might be a good idea to have my eyes checked every 6 months, or at the minimum at least once a year. My dad didn’t like the idea that he might have to spend the money for a new pair of glasses for me in another 6 months so I knew my thoughts of getting the thin lenses might be out the window. My eye exam was a repeat of the last exam I had 3 years earlier. When the doctor got to the point where he felt he had given me the best possible correction I mentioned to him that his receptionist had told me that my eyes might get even worse over the next 6 months. He suggested that that was a definite maybe so I asked him if he could give me a slightly stronger prescription now so that I could get thinner lenses and I might be able to go for a whole year. He asked me to take off my glasses and look into the machine again. I heard a few clicks and then he asked me to read the line projected on the wall. It was really easy to see it, so he made the machine click a few more times. I had to work to focus this time, but I could read it and he said that this was about as strong as he could possibly go. I thanked him, and he gave me a slip of paper again. When Judy, who was still working as the optician saw my new prescription she told me that this time I really needed hi index lenses. I asked her which ones and she told me the very lowest priced ones would be the 1.67 index ones, but she really would suggest the 1.74 index ones. Judy had my file in front of her. I had not asked what the prescription had been in the glasses I had worn for the past 3 years, but I now I was curious so I asked her. “The glasses you have been wearing were -13.50 x -1.00 x 70 for the right eye and -13.50 x -0.50 x 140 for the left eye. The prescription the doctor just gave you is -16.00 x -1.00 x 85 and -16.00 x -0.75 x 135.” Judy replied. “Is that really strong?” I asked. “It isn’t the strongest prescription I have ever seen in an almost 14 year old girl, but it is right up there. We have one young lady that has just turned 10, and she just had her prescription increase from -17.50D up to -18.50D. But she has worn glasses from the time she was about a year old.” Judy replied. Judy helped me pick a new frame and the new frame with the 1.74 index lenses was going to cost my dad almost $300.00. My dad asked if there was a cheaper lens choice, and Judy told him that with my prescription there really wasn’t. The cost of the regular lenses would have to be increased by making them into what she called a myodisc, and when I asked her what that was she showed me a pair of glasses with myodisc lenses. It was the new pair for the 10 year old girl that had the -18.50D prescription and I didn’t really like the appearance of them. However I realized that if my eyes got any worse I would likely need that type of lenses. There was no sense worrying about it now though, and we got my new glasses ordered with the 1.74 index lenses. A couple of weeks went by, and fortunately I had not needed my new glasses yet. If school had gone back there is no way I could have read the chalkboard with my existing ones. The optical store called and mom had our car that day, so she took me to the store to pick them up. She asked Judy if I could get thinner lenses for my glasses and was a little shocked when Judy told her that my lenses were already the thinnest ones available for my prescription. She also asked Judy why my eyes were so bad, and all that Judy said was that some people just have their eyeballs grow longer than they should be, especially during the years when they were growing. Judy adjusted the earpieces so that my glasses felt comfortable and didn’t slip down my nose, and mom and I then went to the grocery store to do the shopping. By the time we returned home I could still tell that these glasses were a bit stronger than I really needed, but I knew that I could easily wear them, and if my past experiences were any indication, it would not take me very long to adapt to them. I was happy that my dad had bought me the thinner lenses. During the past year I had really developed, and my breasts seemed to always be straining to jump out of my brassier. My mom was always having to buy me a bigger bra size. I had grown taller and I thought my hips were a little bit too big, but all the older guys at school really seemed to like my figure as I was getting a lot of attention. My long blond hair hung almost to my trim waist, and even though I had braces on my teeth you could tell that my teeth were going to be nice and straight after the braces came off. Some guys might have been turned off by the strength of my glasses, but if they were, there were enough other guys that were hitting on me that I didn’t care. At one time some lady had said that guys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses. In my case that certainly wasn’t true. I had a lot of guys ask me out, and some of them wanted me to go steady with them, but I didn’t want to tie myself to one guy. I found that I liked going out with guys that showed some interest in my obviously poor vision and I enjoyed showing them how little I could see if I took my glasses off. I would always let any guy I was with try my glasses on. But if he tried to make it a game for me to get them back I never went out with him again. My glasses lasted right up to the time I had my eye exam at the driver licensing branch when I was trying to get my beginners license. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed that my eyesight had gotten worse, but I hadn’t and now I needed new glasses before I got my beginner’s permit. If I got a note from my eye doctor I didn’t need to try the eye test again, so my dad made me an appointment with the same eye doctor. My prescription had gone up a lot, and I think the doctor had remembered what I had asked him before and had made my new prescription just a little bit stronger than I really needed. When I got my new glasses with their -18.50D lenses I could see perfectly, and I was amazed at the things I had been missing. But I could tell that I was making my eyes work to focus on everything so that is why I think my glasses were a little too strong. Since my glasses had lasted for the full 2 years my dad was willing to pay for the 1.74 hi index lenses again, but of course with an increase of -2.50D in my prescription even the high index lenses looked quite a bit thicker. My mom wasn’t happy that my glasses were looking so thick again. She started a campaign for me to get contact lenses again and she wouldn’t let up. I almost felt that I was an embarrassment to her when her friends saw her with me wearing my thick and strong glasses. Finally, when I turned 17 in grade 11, I gave in to her and I went back to the eye doctor to be fitted with contact lenses. I hate to admit it, but I did find that there were some times that it was nice to be able to go without glasses on my nose. But I didn’t do it very often because I didn’t want to get too used to wearing contacts. To get my mom off my back I just told her that I could wear them for a few hours but after about 4 or 5 hours my eyes got sore. Unfortunately, when my eye doctor tested my eyes for my contacts he discovered that my vision had gotten a bit worse and now my glasses needed to be right on -20D. But since I was getting contacts I got new glasses with the old regular plastic lenses and they were even thicker than my old -18.50 high index lenses were. These glasses were dished in on the front and they had circles in the center of both lenses that held the prescription part. Mom really wasn’t happy when I told her that I couldn’t wear my expensive contact lenses for a full day without my eyes getting sore. I would sometimes just wear my glasses all day just to upset her. The following year was the year I would turn 18, and it was my final year of high school. When school started there was a new girl in my class. She also wore very thick glasses that actually might have been a little bit stronger than mine. It was only natural that we should get together and talk about our mutual poor uncorrected eyesight and after trying each other’s glasses on we discovered that her eyes were a bit worse than mine because she couldn’t see clearly through my lenses. But I could see very well wearing her glasses, so we knew her eyes were just a tiny bit worse. After we became friends she told me that she had grown up in our town and had gone to a different junior high, but her family had moved to be with her mom’s parents because her grandfather was quite sick. He had died the past spring and they had moved back to their house here. Apparently her grandmother had moved back to live with them now. We had a good time in each other’s company. Lindsey asked me about all the guys that hung around me and were now starting to hang around her as well, so I told her which ones were the nicer guys. Of course I kept the 2 best glasses loving guys to myself, but there were 3 or 4 glasses lovers that she found interesting. One day Lindsey and I were talking about our vision, and she mentioned that she used the same eye doctor and optical that I used. I thought back to when I had gotten the wrong pair of glasses and I asked her if she had ever had any trouble getting the correct pair of glasses. She told me that once when she went to pick up a new pair of glasses they had tried to give her the wrong pair, but she told them she couldn’t see through them. So they searched the store, but they could not find her glasses and they had to order a new pair for her. I never told her I knew what happened to her glasses, and to this date only the opticians and I would ever know that it was an optical store’s mistake that allowed me to end up wearing the nice thick lensed glasses that I had wanted to have. Specs4ever Feb 2018
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