Framed in Florida

My last pair of glasses lasted five years.

You'd be amazed how long glasses, clothes, shoes, haircuts, furniture, dental work and cars will last for a person in the journalism business. Might have something to do with that whole eat-or-get-new-glasses dilemma that faces all of us writers.

I finally HAD to do something. Nothing says "you need new glasses" like trying to find a street and house number wearing your old ones. I've squinted at street signs and houses for up to an hour.

And a woman approaching her 30th birthday does not need to be squinting. Heretofore, my level of fat has kept me from having any facial wrinkles, and I don't intend to start getting them now.

It's like this exceptionally young-looking 70-year-old told me: "Baby, inflated balloons don't have no wrinkles." It's my new mantra.

The Other Half and I went to one of those one-day glasses shops that are popping up all over the place. Let's call the place Glasses Hades, shall we?

The lady who greeted us had the most lovely glasses imaginable. The tops of the frames were maroon plastic, the bottoms silvertone metal. They were retro but modern. They looked great with her hair and skin tone.

"I absolutely love those glasses!" I said.

She smiled. "Thanks, but we don't sell these here. Sorry!"

I mean, why not just say, "Thanks, but you'll have to select from an inventory of crappy glasses that even I, an employee of this place, wouldn't buy."

Then I walked in to see Dr. Moreau, the on-site optometrist. This guy definitely got his degree at Ed's Bait and School of Optometry. He was sporting polyester, beltless pants, a white shirt with the top four buttons undone and a gold medallion on a thick chain.

I feared one of his chest hairs would fly into my eye and mess up my exam results. But that didn't happen. Instead, he devoted five minutes to my eye health and glasses prescription, then he gave me those painful drops that dilate pupils.

"You'd better get out there and pick out your frames while you can still see!" he said. "These babies don't wear off for three hours."

I guess I'd forgotten that little fact in the five years since my last eye examination. What he was saying is that I had 10 minutes of decent vision left to pick out some suitable frames. There were about 1,000 frames to choose from. GO!

My vision fading, I relied on Mr. Half and one of the eyewear consultants -- not the girl with the great glasses -- to help me make a selection.

Mr. Half is going through an early mid-life crisis and has, in the last year, pierced his left earlobe, gotten blonde streaks in his hair and tinted the windows on his Mitsubishi. Not the kind of person you want picking out glasses for a conservative dresser.

Then there was the eyewear consultant, who was approaching her 60th birthday and not even wearing glasses. She actually handed me a pair in METALLIC GREEN with black, snake-like arms. "These are very popular!" she claimed. With who? Drag queens?

My vision was gone. I ended up choosing one pair that looked like pewter shaped by mentally challenged blacksmiths and also a Buddy Holly-wannabe pair in olive green.

You can imagine my surprise when I picked them up a few hours later, my vision restored. But it gets worse.

Apparently, my ears are not symmetrical.

It's true. My left ear is actually a few millimeters lower than my right. That means my new glasses -- especially the Buddy Holly pair -- don't sit straight on my nose.

At least I can see now, even if the world is a little crooked and I look like an escaped mental patient.

Heidi Hall is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.

Editor's note: This column originally appeared in 1999. It was written in Pensacola, Fla.