Out of sight Finally, failing vision allows me to make a spectacle of myself BY ALAN OLIFSON

I left my medical screening in a surprisingly good mood. During the one-hour smorgasbord of tests required by my new health-insurance provider, I learned many unpleasant facts: I am an inch shorter than I have been telling people, I’m a few pounds heavier than I should be comfortable with, and, despite cutting down to one Monte Cristo sandwich per year, I have somewhat high cholesterol. But my spirits were up because I also summarily and spectacularly failed my vision test.

I now have medical proof: I need glasses.

When I was 12, I was excited about getting braces. I remember thinking I’d look kind of dashing and bad-ass with my new shiny smile. That I had the word "dashing" in my thought repertoire and used it in conjunction with "bad-ass" should give you a good idea of the kind of kid I was. At the very least, I had a tenuous grasp of adjectives, though I think the issues went a little deeper than vocabulary.

My infatuation with braces ended abruptly in a blur of bleeding cheeks, tiny rubber bands shooting uncontrollably out of my mouth, and endless miniature manila envelopes filled with wax. But my inexplicable desire for medically assisted living just moved up my face, and my secret craving for glasses began. While my longing for braces may be partly explained by a normal 12-year-old boy’s vision of what a metal mouth can do — exacerbated by repeated viewings of the James Bond flick Moonraker, with its steel-toothed villain, Jaws — I think my infatuation with glasses is rooted purely in the aesthetic.

Glasses are an amazingly expressive fashion accessory. You can take them off to emphasize a point; offhandedly blow on the lenses and wipe them with your shirt to show cool, casual assuredness; remove them to rub your eyes (which somehow conveys so much more frustration and exhaustion than simply rubbing your non-glasses-wearing eyes — as if you’re saying, "I am so exhausted and frustrated that I will endure impaired vision for just the smallest amount of temporary relief. Now get me a Scotch"). There is also a degree of geek chic associated with glasses these days. The right frames hint at a certain brand of quirkiness I wouldn’t mind hinting at, regardless of whether I actually possess it.

I know they make frames with clear, non-prescription glass for those of us cursed with 20/20 vision but 20/80 style. But even I couldn’t stoop to that level. I mean, sure, I think of glasses as a fashion accessory, but I realize they are also a medical necessity for many people. Walking around in useless frames because they look good with your suede jacket seems tantamount to cruising around in a wheelchair because you like the way it makes you look nonchalant. So, as much as I wanted glasses, I had to wait for my vision to fail.

And now it has. But before I could get glasses and start my new, medically assisted life, the life I was born to live, I needed an actual prescription. The exam at my two-bit health screening was rudimentary, at best: the office’s full battery of optical-testing equipment consisted of one piece of poster board with letters printed in decreasing size. But you can’t very well walk into LensCrafters and say, "I can’t read past line three. Make it better." So I made an appointment with an optometrist.

Most people would wait until after seeing the eye doctor to select their frames. These people do not have their priorities in order. The time-tested eye-chart exam is good enough for me. If the board with the giant "E" says I need glasses, then, damn it, I need glasses. The first chance we had, I dragged my girlfriend along to select my new face. Since I’ve already invested more time than any healthy, normal person would in imagining what kind of glasses I’d wear if ever given the gift of poor vision, the frame-selection process was a short one. I decided, if you must know, on a nice little black-rimmed wire number by Modo. Since I know nothing about frame manufacturers, it is a happy coincidence that the company whose frames I chose has the motto "Today’s eyewear is as much about fashion as it is about function." Damn mothereffing straight.

Happy with my new glasses, I eagerly awaited my actual eye exam. I arrived at the optometrist’s office four days after selecting my frames. The exam consisted of, among other things, me putting my eyes in front of some machine that, without warning, blew a puff of air right into my skull. Apparently this tests for glaucoma. I think it’s just rude. You warn a person before you blow a puff of air into his eye. Common courtesy. Besides the air puffing, I endured a couple other eyeball-invasive machines and then the standard, "What looks better, one or two? Okay, how about now, one or two?" All this culminated in my official diagnosis: astigmatism. Yes. That sounds sufficiently severe. You’ve got to need glasses with something like that. I soon learned that astigmatism is an irregularly shaped cornea and, almost more interestingly, is not "a stigmatism." Who knew my new prescription would help my vision and spelling?

The following week, as I anxiously awaited the arrival of my glasses, I broke the news to my friends and family. Surprisingly, they didn’t share my excitement: "Why don’t you just get contacts?" "What about LASIK?" "You should stop masturbating." (Okay, well, that guy is a little weird.) It was like telling people that my doctor had suggested drinking a bottle of wine every day and getting, "Oh, well, have you tried pomegranate juice? It has the same amount of antioxidants" in response. I mean, yeah, I guess I could get contacts, but why? There’s nothing cool about sticking your finger in your eye every morning. I’m getting glasses, man. Like Elvis Costello or Rivers Cuomo. Come on, get with the program.

I don’t know why my eyes failing me is the only sign of growing older that I welcome with open arms. Lord knows every other hint of aging, both physical and emotional, I deny, resist, and generally just hope goes away. Could I be shallow enough to enjoy one aspect of aging simply because it comes with cool accessories? I’m afraid that might be it. Maybe if companies started making walkers with a little more panache, the fact that my knees audibly creak wouldn’t bother me.

Alan Olifson can be reached at alan@olifson.com