Since it's spring, we've been doing a lot of cleaning. I have to admit that I'm a bit of a pack rat - not that I save everything, but I tend to find a senitmental value to most things and think that I might need it in the future. Today I found out that I was wrong...I do not need to keep everything, because I end up saving a lot of junk. And towards the end of the day, things I once thought held some sentimental fascination no longer strike the same chord in me...and thus it ends up in the trash.
Anyhow, while I was cleaning out a desk I came across a glasses container - the case from 3rd grade. I couldn't believe it! Could this actually hold the one physical reminder of my "tortured" (and I say that in quotations simply because anyone who survived elementary and middle school as a self-professed nerd would say that they were tourtured in school by those more "fortunate" then they)?! If anything can take me down memory lane, it's my glasses I had from 3rd through 8th grade.
It all began when my 3rd grade teacher told the school nurse that I was squinting in class, so the nurse pulled me out of class to do a simple vision test. I failed. The nurse sent home a letter to my parents (before cell phones they still sent home letters) stating that I needed to see an optomitrist due to my inability to see 20/20. I don't remember physically giving my parents the letter, but somehow I ended up at my parent's optomitrist - and he was fairly new to the profession and eager to see any and everyone who wanted to see him - we'll call him Dr. H. Sure enough, Dr. H determined that at the age 8 I had vision problems and needed glasses to wear daily. I was upset, I didn't want anything to be wrong...and let's face it, being "big boned" in the 3rd grade wasn't going to help my new acquisition of glasses (might as well add head gear...well, that does come later).
After informing me of what was already determined at school, Dr. H told me and my parents that I was going to get (that's in italics and you'll find out why) to pick out my first pair of glasses. Seeing the wide array of colors and shapes outside his office made me a little excited! Back then Guess was a very popular brand, and sure enough the company had expanded to making eyewear for kids. And there. they. were. The most spectacular Guess glasses! They were perfect! Petite frame, color: cotten candy (a speckling of periwinkle, pink, and turquoise)! So I picked them up and took them back to where my parents and Dr. H were sitting, waiting for me.
Right away, my mother already thought they were heinous: "Ee gads, those colors?!".
My dad was a bit more encouraging: "Well, try them on".
My mother gasps just loud enough for me to notice and I turn to her, she looks horrified. "Really?", I think to myself, "they couldn't be that bad". As I turn back around, Dr. H has placed the portable mirror in front of me. Aw, man, they were that bad. The petite frames were stretched enough arcoss my face that the ear peices were bent as far as they could go, as if they might pop off - screws holding them together as best as they could. I told my parents "But, I really like them" (at this point I am near tears because, well frankly, I wanted the ones called cotten candy - perhaps that's why they didn't fit...I'd had too much cotten candy to wear the kids frames).
Dr. H rumages around in some other frames while I sit there trying to bend the Guess, cotten candy, kid frams back to their normal position. He pulls out a pair of adult, red-framed glasses and asks me to put them on. They slide on and I immediately feel bug-like, as if my eyes are protruding off of my face.
Mom: "Oh, those are wonderful!"
Dad: "And they are so becoming."
Dr. H: "Yes, so becoming."
Before I realize it, the order is being written up and I am told that they will be in within 3-5 business days. All I can do as I sit there is, "wait! Did I really only get to try on 2 pairs of glasses", and then we're off to the next errand. And my parents keep repeating to me: they're so becoming. At age 8, I don't have any idea what this means, except for the fact that I trust them...that maybe these glasses will transform me into a more noticable 3rd grader (the one that Josh H. would notice).
And...I was wrong. The red-framed glasses came in, Dr. H adjusts them a bit so they sit straight on the bridge of my nose, and I'm sent back to school. The first thing out of Josh H.'s mouth is "Sally Jesse Raphael! You look like Sally Jesse Raphael! Bwaaa Haahh!" Soon most of my 3rd grade class is laughing along.
I did everything I could to get rid of those glasses: sat on them, put them in my backpack without their case, bent the earpeice too far back, rolled over them with the teacher's chair. And they broke 3 times. Each time they broke, I received the same red-framed glasses. Each time! So my nickname through the rest of elementary school and early junior high was Sally Jesse Raphael (I also earned David Letterman, but you'll hear about that when I tell you about the head gear).
{If I was blog-savvy this is where I would insert my 3rd grade class picture}
I did finally get contacts...and moved on from the SJR nickname...but finding those glasses brought it all back. It is funny now - to think how much I hated them, and I still have a phobia of red glasses (which Dr. H and his practice still like to remind me of) - but now I can laugh at it. I may not have gotten the Guess, cotten candy glasses, and it's fine - I made my husband buy me a pair of Coach glasses just recently. I can wear those with a bit more pride.
No, they are not red.
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