Blind as a bat
It's happened at long last......finally yesterday the optometrist uttered the words I've been longing to hear for about 25 years. "Err I'm afraid you are going to have to have reading glasses."
"Yes!!!" My internal voice cheered and my heart soared.
Y'see for years I had wished I had glasses. In fact a couple of times as a teenager I convinced myself or more likely I convinced my mother that I had headaches and blurry vision. To no avail usually after the test the Optometrist would compliment me on my perfect 20/20 vision and I would be turned away naked faced.
Eventually I gave up on my dream and got on with life but now and again over the years I would have the chance to have my eyes checked and that little of frisson of hope would be extinguished with the news my eyes were perfectly happy thank you very much.
Over the last few weeks things have changed - my eyes started twitching and after 6 or 7 hours in front of a computer at work I would be squinting at the screen, leaning forward, leaning back, blinking. Hmmmm so of course I became convinced that something was terribly wrong with my brain...after complaining for a few weeks I Ed finally convinced me maybe it was just my eyes...hence the test.
So prognosis in hand I was swiftly dispatched by mr optometrist into the store where an assistant was instructed to help me fine some frames. I was excited, I was pumped until I realised that in the glasses fashion world at the moment (on my face anyway) were two very distinct looks.
Either this:
Or this:
While the Nana look could almost be construed on many other women as looking a bit arty, a bit cool a bit left of centre. On me I simply looked like I could be doing the Nana Moskouri tribute show at Canterbury RSL.
As for the Sarah Palin look - while I don't usually wear my hair in a half up half down beehive it's possible with a bad day in the office and a resulting bad hair day anything is possible.
I was gutted - after all these years of wanting it turns out that I look quite stupid in glasses. I sullenly chose a pair and put them on the counter...dreams dashed.
Before I could think about my dissolusionment the sales girl calls out happily "that'll be six hundred and eighty dollars thanks" and I almost choke. What??? How could this be???? Seems this is exactly how this is - this it seems how dodgy upmarket designers make their money flogging samey samey frames onto unsuspecting folk like me. The frames (which I don't even like) are 400 bucks...then the rest goes into the little pieces of glass that will stop me going blind. Sigh. It's all I could do to console myself that I haven't needed the bloody things before this otherwise I would be out on the streets begging to afford my frames.
So sadly in this particular case it seems that it's not always a good thing when your dreams come true. Specially when it means you might just end up looking like an out of pocket Sarah Palin.
"Yes!!!" My internal voice cheered and my heart soared.
Y'see for years I had wished I had glasses. In fact a couple of times as a teenager I convinced myself or more likely I convinced my mother that I had headaches and blurry vision. To no avail usually after the test the Optometrist would compliment me on my perfect 20/20 vision and I would be turned away naked faced.
Eventually I gave up on my dream and got on with life but now and again over the years I would have the chance to have my eyes checked and that little of frisson of hope would be extinguished with the news my eyes were perfectly happy thank you very much.
Over the last few weeks things have changed - my eyes started twitching and after 6 or 7 hours in front of a computer at work I would be squinting at the screen, leaning forward, leaning back, blinking. Hmmmm so of course I became convinced that something was terribly wrong with my brain...after complaining for a few weeks I Ed finally convinced me maybe it was just my eyes...hence the test.
So prognosis in hand I was swiftly dispatched by mr optometrist into the store where an assistant was instructed to help me fine some frames. I was excited, I was pumped until I realised that in the glasses fashion world at the moment (on my face anyway) were two very distinct looks.
Either this:
Or this:
While the Nana look could almost be construed on many other women as looking a bit arty, a bit cool a bit left of centre. On me I simply looked like I could be doing the Nana Moskouri tribute show at Canterbury RSL.
As for the Sarah Palin look - while I don't usually wear my hair in a half up half down beehive it's possible with a bad day in the office and a resulting bad hair day anything is possible.
I was gutted - after all these years of wanting it turns out that I look quite stupid in glasses. I sullenly chose a pair and put them on the counter...dreams dashed.
Before I could think about my dissolusionment the sales girl calls out happily "that'll be six hundred and eighty dollars thanks" and I almost choke. What??? How could this be???? Seems this is exactly how this is - this it seems how dodgy upmarket designers make their money flogging samey samey frames onto unsuspecting folk like me. The frames (which I don't even like) are 400 bucks...then the rest goes into the little pieces of glass that will stop me going blind. Sigh. It's all I could do to console myself that I haven't needed the bloody things before this otherwise I would be out on the streets begging to afford my frames.
So sadly in this particular case it seems that it's not always a good thing when your dreams come true. Specially when it means you might just end up looking like an out of pocket Sarah Palin.
posted by Kate Browne at 7:43 PM
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