Being Blind

Glasses can make you look, studious. They can make incredibly feeble minded raving idiots appear to be intellectual and insightful. They shield our eyes from the sun, they make us look cool. Some of us, and I think we are actually a minority group, even use them to correct our vision.

Which is why the unfortunate events of this morning happened.

I rose gracefully from the bed at 8am, as the mans flatmate had left the house by then and Im kinda intimidated by him (strange but true). The plan was simple- quick shower, quick bite to eat then off to work.

I stepped into the shower and began my normal cleansing routine.... now you may find this strange but I generally shower with my glasses on. Its a security thing, and that way I can see the soap. You see I am really bloody blind! I only take them off when I wash my face....

So I took them off to wash my face and placed them on the soap dish. I washed, I rinsed. I washed again. (Wakeup wash). Finding my face suitably clean I reached for my glasses, went to place them upon my nose and---

POP. The lense fell out, as the dodgy loose screw in the sides went flying into the atmosphere. The lense landed in the drain.

This was a matter of urgency. I shut the water off, grabbed the lense and went searching for the screw, crawling the bottom of the shower in desperate hope. I must have been a sight - naked and wet as the day I was born, crawling around in broken glasses squinting with one eye shut(thats what I have to do when the lense falls out). And after much searching and much frustration, I came to a distressing conclusion- the tiny screw that holds my fragile glasses together was lost forever, poured down a drain like so much wasted water and soap. I was heartbroken.

You gotta understand- when you are as blind as me, not having your glasses on pretty much disables you completely. You cant discern distance. When I havent got them on, I cant even see things that are on the floor in front of me. It is a total loss of control. I can't even leave the house- Id end up walking in the wrong direction and falling off the cliff. And I definately cant DRIVE, that would be a suicide mission.

So here I am, now running late for work, holding one lense in my hand and walking, sopping wet and in a skimpy towel through the apartment still squinting with one eye shut. I remember, in a flash of brilliance, that the sticky tape I bought to wrap pressies with last weekend is still on the table. So I grabbed it and did a little bit of a home optometry job on my poor broken glasses. Thankfully, it worked.

I had to use so much tape however, that my glasses appeared to have some form of unnattractive growth attached to the side. But given how late I was, and the fact that I was still butt naked, I figured that this would have to do.

Vanity asside, I made it to my new place of work and was greeted with 'wow hey did you break your glasses?'. NO YOU DOMKOPF, I thought they would look a hell of alot more interesting with a dirty great big piece of sticky tape wrapped around them. Kinda suits me, yeah? Its great when your already nervous, self-conscious and stressed, how people manage to make you feel a whole lot better.

When I went out to my first job, I went via the optometrist on the corner near the bread shop at engadine. Now I dont know if anyone actually uses him, but the man is a saint and I will love him to the ends of the earth. Not only did he FIX MY GLASSES, he REFUSED ANY PAYMENT, and asked me instead to make a donation to the cancer council thingy that he had a donations box for at the counter. I was so grateful and full of love that I folded up a tenner and put it in.

Well I figure its $10 well spent- I can now walk with my head held high and without my hair fixed over my hideous home optometry glasses job, the man was really nice and wished me a great day, and someone, somewhere is going to benefit from the research by the cancer council.

So there was my ridiculous start to the day- I think maybe I should change the name of this to "Rissa- a girl and her catastrophes"......