I went to have my eyes examined the other day because everything I read was all blurry and squinty and I was hoping I needed glasses. Because I've always wanted to wear glasses. People who wear glasses just look smarter than everyone else, and I could totally use an edge in the looks-like-she-has-lots-of-brains department. I have ALWAYS WANTED TO WEAR GLASSES AND NO ONE WOULD GIVE THEM TO ME! Sunglasses do not count. And I am not dork enough to go get frames and have someone put clear glass in them, because the person I would ask for clear-glass lenses would then KNOW that I am vain and childish and would snicker ruefully as he or she also noticed that my ears are at diferent heights. And I would then have to kill that person.

Opthamologists, having all that education, are reasonable people and will not prescribe glasses unnecessarily to idiots like me. But OPTOMETRISTS are a different story! Optometrists are prescription machines. Optometrists make you walk through an acre of Sally Jesse Raphael Fashion Frames just to get to the exam room.

So I took my AAA member discount card and went to the local mecca of cheap exams and ugly frames: Lenscrafters!

It was great. They gave me a little sterilized paddle to cover my eyes while I squinted and misread the chart. They had a machine that puffed air at my eyes. All kinds of crap like that. And what did I come away with? Yes! A prescription!

A prescription for reading glasses.

Good god, you perky Lenscrafter optometrist with the diploma from Berkeley on your wall, I don't want fucking reading glasses! I want to look like I think for a living. I want to walk around looking like I'm on my way to speak with some authority at the 92nd Street Y. And what do I get? Well, in fact I do get to look like that, but only while I lay in bed reading Harry Potter books.

I think there must be a place on the Internet for people like me, people who wish their vision was slightly blurry. Like those people who only feel whole after they've had a limb removed. I won't go so far as to burn my corneas out by staring at the sun, just some slight myopia would be fine. But no, me and my accursed far-sightedness. I see you there, walking around on the hot Egyptian sand, Mohammed. Your fly is open.