The Eye of the Beholder

So finally, after 17 years of wearing glasses, I decided to get contacts. There are a variety of reasons for this. First off, every time it rains, I get drops on my glasses and hence I see spots. Every time I peel a potato or stand in front of the stove frying something, I get grease or juice on my glasses and I see spots. If I accidentally brush against my glasses with my finger, I leave a smudge and thus can't see clearly. Going to the beach meant I couldn't go into the sea with my glasses on, so I would have to leave them with my towel. Not a massive problem going in, but coming back out I would have to try and locate my towel again. This is a process of elimination whereby I would walk over to colourful blobs on the sand and squint at it, trying to determine if the blob in question belonged to me. This upset little children, and angered their parents, so my lovely companion and I came up with a system. I would go into the sea, play around a bit, and when I was ready to reach my towel, I would stand at the waterline looking lost until she came over to fetch me.

I finally decided that I was done with all the hassles of wearing glasses, so I made an appointment with my optometrist to get contact lenses fitted. Unfortunately, as I am not used to poking something into my eyes on a regular basis, it took us 45 minutes to get the first contact in. And a further 30 minutes for the second one. Then I had to go back the next day to learn how to do it myself. Which also took an eternity. I was very surprised at her patience. She calmly sat next to me, soothing me with encouraging words and gentle smiles. But if I could read her mind it would have probably been something like "Oh for the love of all that's holy! It's a simple procedure, why the **** is it taking you so long?!"

But I have finally mastered inserting them and removing them. I can walk around with confidence, and even dance in the rain with impunity. And at long last I won't scare little kids at the beach any more.....