They say you can tell a lot about a person by studying their
eyes. Supposed to be the window to the soul, aren't they? I think there's a lot
in that actually, often I've found that upon meeting someone for the first
time, a quick glance into their eyes can reveal several answers to many of the
questions I might have about that individual without me even having to ask.
What colour are their eyes? How many eyes do they have? Are they cross-eyed? Do
they wear glasses? Are they asleep? That's to name but a few. Yup, take it from
me, if you know where to look and what to look for then a person's eyes can
hold a veritable wealth of information about them.
What you probably couldn't tell about my eyes in particular
just by looking at them, is that I have an astigmatism in the right one.
Basically this means that instead of being the proper round shape like the
left, my right eye is elongated at the back, sort of like a rugby ball. You
can't tell from the outside because the messed up bit is all backstage in my
skull, but it means I have blurred vision when viewing anything past the end of
my nose pretty much. Why I am I telling you this? Aye well just cool your boots
a second, alright? I'm getting to that. God, I don't know, honestly, you can't
wait a minute, can you?
Anyways, I was offered two possible solutions to fix the
problem. I could get a corrective contact lens which would crush the offending
eyeball back into shape, or alternatively I could just plump for the tried and
tested pair of glasses. Didn't really fancy either of those options frankly.
The lens sounded bloody awful, like some sort of hideous, medieval torture
device; although I thought I might be over reacting, so just to put my mind at
rest I asked my optician if it was as uncomfortable as it sounded. He laughed,
shook his head reassuringly and said, "Oh yes, yes. Quite painful,
yes." Bit of an oddball my optician...still, at least he's honest. As for
the specs, well, aside from them being quite old fashioned these days, they'd
be a hassle too. In my experience if you're not constantly cleaning them,
you're losing them or breaking them. Plus Macaulay Culkin had glasses in 'My
Girl ' and look how he ended up. Exactly. Dead. Stung to death by bees. I wasn't
about to make that same mistake, no sir.
Eventually I declined any treatment and soldiered on for a
while, blurred eyesight and all. It was during this short time however that I'm
sorry to say, I discovered what put the 'stigma' in astigmatism. I mean sure,
they said nobody could tell the difference between my eyes, but I soon found
this wasn't the case. People were subtle about it, but I could read the signs.
I think it was the way when I was talking to someone, they would be smiling and
holding eye contact most of the time. Bastards. Clearly smirking at my facial
affliction! Suddenly I could relate to how The Elephant Man must have felt all
those years ago. The final straw came when I was sitting at the dinner table
one night telling a story and happened to say, "Steve and me"
Straight away my mum jumps in with, "Steve and eye son, you say Steve and
eye." I couldn't believe it, my own mother was at it now! I genuinely
don't know what hurt more around that time, snide jibes like that, or the
numerous lampposts I walked into due to my impaired vision. Probably the
lampposts, to be fair…there was a lot of them you see…those really sturdy stone
ones too…yeah, thinking back on it now actually, the lampposts, definitely the
lampposts. Nevertheless eventually I got fed up with such devious mockery and
made an appointment to be fitted with a corrective lens.
God, it was excruciating. Literally the only way I can think
of to describe the feeling of having this contact in, is to say that it was as
if those little guys from Gulliver's Travels – the Lilliputians – were having a
24-hour rave on my eyeball. I stuck it out the best I could for four days, but
breaking point was reached on the morning of the fifth, when I woke up sprawled
out across the floor with a raging hangover, a half downed bottle of cheap
whisky in one hand and a crudely sterilized teaspoon in the other. I don't know
what I was thinking, I guess in a moment of madness I just figured if Colombo
could successfully pull off that look (which he really can, can't he?) then
maybe I could too. It's just lucky I'm such a locally renowned lightweight or
I'd have been in real trouble. Admitting defeat, I took the lens out and
decided to take my mind off the whole thing for a while by surfing the net.
Ironically, it was while doing this that by happy accident, squinting with my
nose pressed right up against the monitor, I discovered this:
Nuff said really. Glasses seemed the natural choice after that. I hadn't forgotten the afore mentioned risks that went with such a decision mind, but I managed to find a pair that went nicely in an ensemble with my full protective bee keepers suit, so it worked out okay in the end.
