I stood in the gleaming mirrored palace that was an eyeglasses store at the mall. Row upon row upon row of eyewear stared at me from the walls. Though anything beyond a foot or two was blurry; the lenses I was wearing now were not up to the task of correcting my vision.
Which is partly why I was here.
The other part involved my somehow hurting my right eye. Parts of my right eye that were normally white were now angry pink. Dr. Bruce said it was simply a burst blood vessel. Dr. Bruce said it wasn’t serious, and there was no sign of infection. Dr. Bruce had told me to stop wearing contacts for 7 days, to put medicinal eye drops containing antibiotic and steroids in my eye four times a day, and to come back and see him in a week.
Without contacts, wearing a prescription that didn’t function well… not a good way to go. Time to update my glasses.
The short, redheaded sales girl, Lisa, had pulled out several frames for me to try on. Thicker frames than the wire-frame I was currently wearing, per my request. But they were all… brown. “Can I see some in black?” I asked.
“Well… OK. I normally encourage brown,” she said. “Black is often too harsh.”
“Perhaps, but black goes with everything” I said. Lisa left me alone for a bit while I tried a few more pairs on.
I texted Lindsey to get her opinion: black or brown? She replied “You have to wear them, so go with your gut. That said, black can sometimes be pretty harsh…”
That was two votes to my one, and almost word-for-word. I still liked black, though. I settled on a pair that looked, with my blurred vision, to be OK. “I like these…” I noticed the “Two frames for the price of one!” sign. “For this deal,” I pointed at the sign, “do the frames have to be the same?”
“No, not at all!”
“Then I’ll get these,” and held out the black frames, “and these,” and pointed to the brown frames.
Problem solved. Easy-peasy.