Rome wasn’t built in a day or without specs.
I needed to see an eye doctor to make sure my eyes were cutting the mustard. The Oxford English Dictionary says that “to cut the mustard” means “to come up to expectations, to meet requirements, to succeed.”
The doctor was right on schedule. I was prepared if he wasn’t. “Better late than blurry,” I told myself.
I was at a sales congress years ago to see and hear Zig Ziglar, a famous motivational speaker. A rookie life insurance salesman was giving a talk to an auditorium full of salespeople. He had never spoken in front of a large group of people but had managed to set sales records for his company. He walked to the podium. I didn’t need eyeglasses to see that he was sweating and shaking like a leaf due to nerves. He stood silently, except for his labored breaths. He looked out at the audience. His eyes were as big as hubcaps.
The host, trying to help, asked what the man’s secret was to his sales success.
After several eternities, the speaker managed to stammer out, “Sssseeee tttthe pppppeople.”
The audience stood as one and applauded without stopping for several minutes.
The man sat down. His unintentional message was a huge hit. We saw.
I thought about that guy during my eye exam, I was asked to read the smallest line of letters possible on a Snellen chart from 20 feet away to determine my visual acuity. I hoped I’d do so well on identifying the letters that the eye doctor would give me a standing ovation.
During the refractive eye exam (also called a refraction or vision test), the eye doctor placed a large instrument called a phoropter in front of your face. This tool made me feel as if I were a knight about to participate in a jousting tournament. The phoropter has lenses, dials and switches. The doctor turned the dials on the phoropter to access different lens powers and asked which lens option helped me see the eye chart most clearly. He flipped between the lenses, and said, “Which is better, one or two?”
He asked that repeatedly.
It was a test I should have studied for.
The doctor stood, but there was no applause forthcoming.
I remember when I first needed to get prescription glasses. I was disappointed to learn the glasses had not given me X-ray vision like Superman possessed. The optician selling me my first eyeglasses didn’t offer X-Ray Specs, a novelty item sold via mail-order ads in comic books. They promised the wearer would be able to see through clothes, skin and walls. I never tried them, but I knew some who had. They weren’t even able to see any X-Ray Specs refunds.
I had to get regular eyeglasses. Why? Because I couldn’t see myself going to work.
I led a nature walk on Earth Day. A TV reporter, carrying a camera, joined us. One of the lenses popped out of his glasses. Luckily, he found it. They were likely his first glasses. I remember losing a lens or two. My wife stepped on my glasses once. Life is full of plot twists. I wasn’t angry. I was glad I wasn’t wearing the glasses at the time.
I visited some friends. The wife told me that she was wearing her husband’s old eyeglasses. Whenever he got new prescription glasses, she took his old spectacles and wore them. That worked for her. The husband added, “But she still doesn’t see things my way.”
I was in a dollar store, searching for a candy bar my wife had craved (sweets for my sweet), when I encountered a former teammate checking out a display of reasonably priced eyewear. “I need cheap glasses to see well enough to find my good glasses,” he said.
Eyeglasses give us something to do when we have nothing to do. We clean the lenses. “Keep calm and carry on” becomes “keep calm and push the glasses back up.” Glasses tend to slide down a nose as if it’s a ski jump.
I wear wee windshields without wipers.
It’s not about how you look. It’s about how you see.
Johnny Nash sang it best, “I can see clearly now.”
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