Story of the Day 6/15/2011

A number of years ago, Sarah came home from school and made a remark about how she couldn’t see the blackboard, it was blurry. I used to take my children to the eye doctor, once a year, for a check up. At the previous appointment, that had only been 4 months earlier, Sarah’s eyes had been fine. On the other hand, Sarah had grown several inches and she was at that magical age (10) when kids often start needing eyeglasses.

So, like a good mother, I trotted her off to the eye doctor, where she was found to have developed nearsightedness and where we promptly purchased a pair of glasses. Well, not that promptly, since the eye doctor we used didn’t sell them, but still fairly promptly.

Since Sarah was the youngest of the three, this also meant that I now had three matching kids- each with a pair of glasses for distance.

I will gladly admit to you that Sarah looked absolutely adorable in her glasses. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get used to wearing them. Despite a lot of nagging from me and my forcing her to put them on, at least once a day, they were rarely worn for more than 20 minutes at a time, and had been completely abandoned within a few weeks.

Every year, when we would go off for the eye doctor appointment, Sarah would smile for the eye doctor, and then refuse to get glasses.

Then, suddenly, about 7 months ago, Sarah let me know that she needed glasses.
Now.
Immediately.

Why? To take her driver’s license examination. Before she can take the written test to get her learner’s permit, she must take a vision test, and without a pair of glasses, she will fail. Ah.

So, every Sunday, for about a month, Sarah and I would drive off to one or more (usually more) different eyeglass places to view what they had. We tried Sears and JC Penney’s, and Vision World and Dr. Tavel’s, and Eye Glass World, and every other place in Indianapolis that has one of those special deals – “An eye exam and a pair of glasses for just $79”, or “An eye exam and two pairs of glasses for just $99!” But we never even found a pair of frames that vaguely interested her, and, eventually, the eyeglass buying trips stopped.

Until 3 weeks ago. Suddenly, Sarah again had this mad desire to get a pair. I mean to get a driver’s license. But she also, by now, had a mother who was absolutely unwilling to drive to any more eyeglass stores.
Ever.

Which is why God made the Internet. And places on the Internet from which one can order a pair of glasses. If you have a prescription.

So, I madly scrounged around the house to find the most recent eyeglass prescription.
Since I still drag her off, once a year, to the eye doctor, I knew we had a relatively (last fall) recent one, but where had I put it?

I found Aaron’s.
I found Ely’s, even though Ely’s is now a contact prescription.
But where was Sarah’s?
Every year, I would get a new piece of paper with a new prescription for each of them. And I would buy them glasses or contacts, or occasionally not, as happened, last fall, with Aaron, when the doctor said it hadn’t changed, and neither had Aaron managed to break the two pairs I had bought him the year before. But Sarah’s prescription was just something that was, at best, decorative; and I suppose that since it was never used it was also never filed in the appropriate place, which happened to be under a magnet on the refrigerator.

So, I called the eye doctor, and had them mail me another copy.

Two weeks ago, right after getting it, Sarah ordered two pairs of glasses from an on-line site recommended by Harriet’s daughter, Joanna.

When Sarah asked me to buy her two pairs, I gave her a look that would have made a lesser person cringe, after all, I expected the glasses to get a grand total of a week’s worth of wear, if we were lucky. But, I am a sucker.

And they were cheap.

And, every day for about 8 days, Sarah has asked me, “When do you think they will come?” This question is not quite as toxic as the “ Are we there, yet?” query, but I was starting to get a bit tired of hearing it, twice a day, and sometimes even three times a day, for the past couple of days.

When they finally arrived, today, Ms. Sarah modeled the new glasses for me.
And, a few minutes later said, “Everything looks so different with so many unimportant details. Like high definition TV.”

I said, “That is because things are now in focus.”

“You mean, they are supposed to look that way?”

And a bit later, “And everything looks brighter!”

”That is because they are in focus.”

Which prompted a short explanation of bent light waves.

In the meanwhile, at least one pair will get a little wear, tomorrow, for the driver’s license exam.

Afterwards, I am sure they will make very nice dust collectors.