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My eyesight has grown considerably worse. The glasses I’ve used for a long time no longer fit to my deteriorated eyesight. I went to get new glasses the other day for the first time in years. During the course of years when I had paid no attention to the glasses market, the stores have become modern and sophisticated, looking like boutiques. Several different chains have their stores inside the shopping mall. They carry cool frames at the low price that people could never dream of years ago. An eyesight test was done inside the store and didn’t use an eye chart but some sort of a high-tech machine. The glasses were prepared only in twenty minutes. I had dreaded how much the new pair would cost, but they charged me far less than I had braced for. I had never imagined getting glasses would be this easy. My new pair is nifty and incredibly light. My face looks so different. With my new sharp vision, I feel like I have transformed myself into a new me. I had my first close encounter with glasses when I was in the second grade. I failed an annual eyesight test at school and the school required a further examination at the doctor’s office. That sent my mother into a near panic. Back in those days, one of the unbelievably stupid things people said in a rural area was that a girl with glasses couldn’t marry and so had no life in the future. My mother said to me, “If you need glasses, it’ll be the end of your life!” I was headed for the doctor’s office trembling with fear with my friend who had also failed the test. After the examination, the receptionist simply let my friend go, and then said to me, “Your glasses will be ready soon. Come get them at the store next to this office.” As casually as that, she handed me a death sentence. I couldn’t face the fact and told a lie to my mother that my eyes were fine. Since then, I hadn’t been able to sleep thinking that the doctor’s office would call for my glasses. Every single phone ring made me jump. My coward lie served me a couple of uneasy months but the call didn’t come after all. My glasses were smothered up. When I was eighteen, I needed glasses to get a driver’s license. I came back to the store next to the doctor’s office and, finally a decade later, got my first pair there. While I took a load off my mind at last, I failed a driving test this time. Only the glasses were left and I had cherished them up until my new pair…
