It was the constant fogging up of my glasses while wearing a mask, and not vanity, honest, that prompted me to visit my optician to switch to contact lenses.
I’d ruled them out over the years because I’d still need to wear reading glasses, and/or sun glasses, they’re planet-unfriendly – all that plastic(?) – and who wants to poke your fingers in your eyeballs when you’re hungover?
But the fogging tipped the scales, so off I trotted to Leighton Buzzard to learn how to put them in and out. While not relishing the idea of poking my own eyes (not that poking anyone else’s thrills me, you understand) I was pretty relaxed about giving contacts a go. I’ve always taken to new things very well to start with. I might plateau immediately or shortly afterwards, but the first try of anything I usually shine.
Like riding a bicycle. The first time I rode a bike as opposed to a trike, I was off like a rocket. My Dad had fitted stabilizers, but he hadn’t fitted them properly – as was his want, bless him – and they never touched the ground.
Yachting. First time I took the helm, I steered a perfect course in not unchoppy waters. Tacked to port and starboard, and even managed goose-winging as if I were a gosling.
Differential calculus. No problem. Even showed the teacher how to do some of the equations.
Contact lenses? Couldn’t get them in. Lashes got in the way
or the bugger wouldn’t get off my finger. Of course, I’d not thought things
through before I left home and had donned mascara as usual. Panda eyes was an
under-description. I began to sweat, which made things even more difficult. Then my neck spasmed when I tried to put my arm over my head to pull the opposite
lid up.
And then one went in. Well that was a fluke, said the optician. Gee thanks, said I.
Then the left eye went in. Ha! said I. The optician smiled wearily.
I looked in the mirror. Eyes were more bloodshot, puffy, and puckered than usual, and my face was sweaty, flushed, and hair unexpectedly all over the place. Good job I wasn’t doing this for vanity.
So here’s how you take one out, I was told. Push it to the outside of your eye and pinch it out. No don’t take your finger off or it’ll slip back over the pupil. Can you feel the lens when you slide it over? No. Here, do what I’m doing; there, can you feel it? No. Push your eye harder. Are you kidding me? OK just pinch it over the pupil no don’t look up no don’t blink. Oh for freesia’s sake oh, I’ve got it on my finger! Great – now try the other one. Do I have to? It’s 5.05pm get on with it.
So we went through the same pantomime until I thought I had it, but there was nothing on my finger. She looked into my eye and couldn’t see a lens so I must have dropped it. We looked all over the desk, laps, floor and back to the desk. Nothing. She had a closer look into my eye and there it was, on top of the eyeball. I don’t know what implement she used to get it out. I don’t want to know. It was now 5.15pm and as well as feeling totally dispirited and humiliated, I had to drive home from Leighton Buzzard in the rush hour. Not pretty.
When I got home, I had the nearest thing to a migraine I had ever had. Oh joy. The fishman arrived. I dragged myself out of the chair and into the courtyard. He opened the back of his van as he does every Tuesday, to reveal what I normally consider to be manna from Heaven, but that evening I had the nearest thing to a dead faint I had ever had.
To cut a very long story short, I managed a little better the next time I went to the opticians, and when I tried them at home today, I got them in quite ok, but getting them out was still a palaver, until I stumbled on a totally different technique for the right eye, which worked ok for the left eye as well.
It’s Sunday tomorrow and the optician is shut so I won’t put them in until Monday. I don’t fancy going to Milton Keynes A&E for an emergency lens extraction. The last time I went to A&E I’d dislocated my little pinky and the whatever-she-was gave me gas and air before pulling it back into place. Ouch. Don’t want her or anyone else near my eye, so maybe I’ll stick to my nerdish glasses. The beauty of my glasses is that they’re transition lenses, meaning they don’t go quite clear, so the bloodshots, puffs and puckers are slightly hidden.
But I’m not vain.
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