A New Year, a New Fake Pair of Specs

Poof!  Glasses!

That was my first thought as Cassidy walked in the room this morning.  She stared up at me through the new eyewear and beamed, daring me to NOT notice this new development happening on her face.

"I got glasses!" she exclaimed.  "Can I have an emergency share about them?"

Now, in addition to the fact that I probably need them soon myself, here is what I know about glasses:

1. The process of going from no glasses to glasses involves many steps, each of which I presume takes dozens of weeks.

2.  Children who are in any stage of the vision enhancement pipeline feel the need to update me regularly about their progress.  "Went to the eye doctor yesterday--I'm getting glasses!"  "I picked out my glasses yesterday--they're purple!"  "LOOK, I GOT MY GLASSES and have to keep them in this case and use this cleaning cloth to clean them!"

So "Poof!  Glasses!" struck me as a bit unlikely.

"You went to the eye doctor?" I asked Cassidy.
"And the doctor prescribed glasses and these have a prescription that helps you see?"
"Are they to help you see or just clear glass for fashion?"

"Yes.  Yes.  They're to help me see" she answered.

"And just once more to confirm--they are not fake?"

"Nope!"

And so it was that Cassidy spent the entire morning in rather adult-sized glasses, taking them off and putting them on randomly throughout the day.  During math, I went over and asked her what the doctor had said about when to wear them.

"Oh, just when I'm walking.  I fell during winter break while I was walking so I need to wear them when I'm walking."

"Hmmm"  I replied.

Which brings me to a few more things I know about eyewear protocol:

3. Glasses frames should be roughly in proportion to the size of your head.

4. There are several activities that might require the wearing of glasses:
  • Reading
  • Doing needlepoint embroidery
  • Driving at night
  • Deciphering far away street signs to prove how superior your vision is to your wife's

   None of these activities, however, include walking.

Image: freefoto.com
But, on the off chance that these were actual, legitimate glasses, I let her keep wearing them and emailed Cassidy's mom with a few questions.  Sure enough, mom called later that afternoon to report that, in fact, Cassidy had not been to the eye doctor and had not been prescribed these large glasses to help her walk more clearly.

Cassidy was, I am pleased to report, able to walk quite well and with no vision support needed over to her cubby to put away what turned out to be her uncle's glasses.

4 comments:

Amy @ Juice Boxes + Crayolas said...

Last year, I had a little girl who had been wearing glasses since the beginning of the year. Her first pair were a simple kids purple pair that she put on periodically throughout the day to "see the board." I did not question it.

Later in the year, she started wearing a larger, tortoise shell pair. They looked a little big for her face, but since I knew the purple pair had "broken" (according to her), I just assumed she had gotten new glasses.

Well, her mom came in one day in May and found them in her desk, demanding to know whose glasses they were. My jaw literally dropped--it turned out that she had stolen BOTH pairs from different people, and did not actually wear/need glasses, but had successfully kept up the charade all year long. I couldn't believe it!

Excellent detective work--you are far savvier than I am. :)

Unknown said...

I've been looking through old pictures lately and found one of Bill wearing a pair something like those tortoise shell.... very large and very 80's. The girls in the apartment next door (maybe 8 and 10 yrs old)have several pairs they wear just for fashion. Their dad shops for them on EBay

Sarah Garb said...

Miss Teacher--I can't believe it either that your student kept up with the glasses wearing so consistently all year! She, at least, knew to start off with a believable enough looking pair for a believable enough reason ;)

Janet--That's hilarious that your neighbor buys his girls fashion glasses! And that they have several pairs. I myself am putting this whole getting glasses thing off as long as possible!

Sarah said...

Wow, that's pretty funny! I would have been a little suspicious too ;) Hey maybe she'll let you borrow them and you can skip all that eye doctor stuff?

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