I really needed glasses to see

It was a lazy Sunday. All I had done since morning was to force my father to take me to get a haircut (and spoil his afternoon plans). After watching his 14 year old daughter ‘get a makeover’ for 45 minutes, my father (understandably) got bored and started thinking of ‘innovative ways’ to entertain himself. He came up to me, and dared me to decipher what an advertisement said by looking at its mirror image.  I was about to try to read it, when I realised my father was just pulling my leg. The advertisement was almost 3 feet away, and the 72 size font was too small to be read from my chair. 

When I told dad I couldn’t read it, and that it was obviously too far, he was taken aback. At first he thought I was joking and making excuses as I was unable to decode the mirror image into sensible English. But when I stressed again and again that I couldn’t read, he and the hair stylist were both scratching their heads. He easily read the ad to show me that a normal person could ‘see that far’, and decided to take me to an eyewear store straight after the haircut.

I was hyped about by new hairstyle, but glasses weren’t a part of my envisioned makeover. On our way across the mall, to the eye-s(t)ore, my dad pointed out various ‘sales’ banner and surprisingly I could read nothing. (You would think a 14 year old would understand that ads were meant to be readable and not being able to read them would make her understand that something was off, right? Somehow I didn’t)

In the eye store, I completely flunked the ‘read from a distance’ tests, and the ‘doctor’ took me away to get it properly tested. I was made to try various lenses, of increasing power, and to everyone’s surprise the first few lens were of no use. While I was sure to be discovered with some power, the actual magnitude of how bad my eyes were shocking. It wasn’t until I was given a -3.0 D power lens that I could read anything properly

While being diagnosed as a myopic person wasn’t a big deal, having this high power before noticing something was wrong was a sign of a dumb kid. Everyone in the store was shocked at how I hadn’t noticed. These remarks fell to deaf ears as I was marvelling over how ‘clearly’ I could see. 

(The first thing I noticed were he blemishes on my face. My mom would always point them out, but I never saw them until I was really close and ignored it. With my new HD vision, my pimpled-riddled, Rudolph nose stood out.) 

I chose some glasses, accepted that a piece of plastic would be forever displayed over my face and was on my way. And this was the story of how I got my glasses.