Did I ever tell you about the time I faked an eye exam?
I don't know what sparked the conversation yesterday with Analiese, but it was surely an entertaining one.
"Did I ever tell you about the time I faked an eye exam?" How could this have not been a topic of dinner table talk in the past? I don't know. Now it was to be the topic of errand running in my 2006 Buick, which I affectionately call "the Grandma car."
I believe it was 5th grade, or so. I got it in my head that glasses would make me look smarter and cooler. Don't ask me how I got it in my head. I just did. Just like other 5th graders get weird things in their heads that make parents and cognizant adults secretly or openly roll their eyes.
Anywho, I ended up at the eye doctor's office staring down at this little retro i-pad like device in my lap. It had rows of bunnies on it. One of the bunnies in each row would kind of bounce up and down and the others would stay stationary, and I would have to point to the bunny that had ADHD. Here is where my plan came to life. I innocently (at least I believed I looked innocent) would point to a calm, stationary bunny every time.
I'm not naive enough to believe that I tricked the clever doctor, but I got a prescription for a pair of glasses. Let's just say the prescription was either for non-corrective lenses (like you get at the store just for looks) or for barely-corrective lenses that you get at the doctor's office when you try to fake an eye exam and the doctor figures out that you might actually need barely-corrective lenses. I think the latter was the case.
I happily tried on several pairs of glasses gauging their ability to bestow upon me the look of intelligence, and therefore coolness, carefully. I settled on a pair that I determined met the criteria.
Anticipation for the glorious day to arrive when I could pick up my glasses and don them for school, overwhelmed me, but the day finally dawned. I proudly put my glasses on and stepped onto the school bus taking my normal seat.
As an adult, we all know that most bad things happen when you sit down on a school bus bench, but I had no such knowledge. I started to hear the giggles and realized they were intended at my expense. "HaHa! You have E.T. glasses!!!!" The laughing only got worse after that.
I think I just kept my head down until I got to school. When I took my once-loved glasses off to examine them, I realized that the company name was printed on the side of the glasses. E.T.!!! What company in their right mind made kids' glasses in the 80s with the initials E.T. printed on them!!!! I can't answer for the baffoons that decided this over a conference room table, but I was utterly mortified.
Needless to say, I didn't wear my intelligence bestowing E.T. glasses to school anymore, and eventually I was squinting a bit to read the chalkboard.
I hope that I learned something from that whole ordeal. Maybe the following:
Do not fake illnesses or deficiencies. It may backfire in the form of E.T. glasses.
The grass is not always greener on the other side. Maybe it is greener because there are piles of dog poop fertilizing the gorgeous green lawn, and you can't actually walk on it without a great deal of concentration and trepidation. Prance about your deficiently green lawn instead.