We've all seen how much Sir Voltar likes his goggles. But are goggles really that great? My own experience might speak otherwise.
I’ll have to be honest: goggles aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
I bought into it just as much as everyone else, after seeing the legendary drawing
http://virmir.artspots.com/image/42174/goggles. I mean, goggles just have a certain flair to them.
After I’ve spent the day wearing goggles, I’ll repeat my analysis: goggles aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
Last night, due to an unfortunate circumstance, my glasses broke. One of the miniature screws came undone. If you’ve ever worn glasses, you know what a pain those are. They require the absolute smallest flat-head screwdriver ever made in the history of man in order to get them screwed in. Thus, without the screw tightened properly, the lens on the right side popped out.
Fortunately for me, I had GOGGLES! You know, prescription sports goggles? Previously, I just used them for playing dodge ball at school. Since I really just felt too lazy to go to the kitchen and get a screwdriver to repair my glasses, I just put my goggles on instead.
Sure, goggles have some problems. There’s the fact that they press against your face, causing a minor pain similar to a headache. And, of course, there’s the strap that cuts into your ears.
But the worst part of wearing goggles is the tunnel vision. You don’t notice it at first, but as you wear them throughout the day, you’ll find that you gradually start to lose touch with the world around you. First, you jump when someone taps you on the shoulder. Then, you fail to notice as someone walks right next to you.
I put up with it, though. I mean, I just didn’t feel like repairing my glasses.
But then, as usual, Mom came into the picture.
She was leaving for a dentist appointment. But really, she was just saying that she was preparing to leave for a dentist appoint, or fixin’ to get ready to leave for a dentist appointment, when she popped into my room.
“What’s with the goggles?”
“Oh, my glasses just broke a little, but don’t worry about it.”
Naturally, I forget that the phrase “don’t worry about it” sends Mom into a full-fledged panic attack. This happens with nearly everything in her life. For example, when “Mad Cow” was on the news, she decided that we needed to abstain from all beef products. We instead turned to Bison burgers (which we found tasted really, really good, so we kept eating them after the scare was over.)
“Do we need to take them to the eye doctor?” she asked, her eyes bulging.
“No, I just need to screw them back in.”
“We need to get them fixed!”
“I know. I can fix them.”
“Do you want to come with me to the dentist so we can…”
“Actually, you know, I’ll just fix them right NOW.”
I rose from my chair, with my goggles over my eyes. I went to the kitchen where we had the miniature screwdrivers in a small box. I laid my glasses on the kitchen table and opened to box. Oddly enough, the smallest one was missing from the box. I checked in the drawer.
“I can pick up a glasses repair kit from the pharmacy on the way back, they’ll probably have something like that,” she added, as I searched through the drawer.
“I don’t need a glasses repair kit. I just need to find the right screwdriver.”
“Would a kit have the right…”
“Mom,” if she kept this up, she would be late for her dentist appointment. It was an EASY FIX. All I needed was the right screwdriver, darn it!
It would be much easier than last time. Last time this happened, I didn’t have goggles. So when I tried to get the screw into my glass frame, I could hardly see what I was doing. Then the screw came out and fell onto the floor, where it was so small it looked like a speck of cereal. At least this time I could see what I was doing.
I looked downstairs, perhaps Dad took the screwdriver out and put it on the tool bench? I checked over it with my goggles. Nope. Perhaps I didn’t need a screwdriver…I mean, it was a flat-head screw, so any thin, non-flexible object would work.
“I’ll stop by the store on the…”
“No, don’t worry, I can do it.”
“All you need is a kit.”
“No, I’m just being defensive about my own abilities,” I totally just said that.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I don’t even need a screwdriver. ANY flat object will do to screw the screw back in!”
“But…”
“I’ll be fine.”
As she left, I was trying the screw with a sharp knife. Then I decided to heat up lunch. And then I realized something. I forgot one of my primary rules.
“Never reject someone who is offering to help you.”
I took on this rule upon realizing that a lot of my life was spent struggling against people who were trying to help me. And I forgot it yet again. As Sir Voltar would say, “HOLY FRAZZ!”
She wasn’t trying to hinder me. She was offering to HELP me, to go OUT OF HER WAY to make it so I could repair my glasses more easily, and I said, “Nope, I’ll do it all myself. I don’t need any of YOUR help.” I recognized what I was doing when I said I was being “defensive,” but I forgot to change my behavior. Curses, foiled by myself yet again.
A lot of our lives are spent in goggles, tunnel-visioned so much that we can’t recognize help when we see it. So down with these goggles. Sorry, Voltar, but this whole goggles thing just isn’t for me.
