Frazz by Jef Mallett for August 28, 2012

My sympathies. I spent most of my grade school and high school years in the front row – with glasses.

For me, it was a trip to the optometrist AND many, many trips to the orthodontist. Plastic-framed glasses and braces. I wasn’t the most popular kid in school.

I use to try to fake the eye charts so I could wear glasses. The school nurse saw right through it. Now I do wear them.

My teachers kept putting me in the front row, claiming it would help me see the chalkboard better. Yet, for me it was better from the back row. Besides most of my teacher had bad handwriting.

5th grade. Glasses. Coming home from Towers Optical in a Manhattan cab with my new specs, comparing the view with and without glasses, and having a hard time believing how bad my eyes had gotten. Of course, I still sucked at school but hey, I could see the board now.

If you’re from Seattle, it must also be stirred counter-clockwise.

Yeah, I can produce the same thing for about fifteen cents; just need the six buck paper cup.

Hey, there’s a market…Beamer go cups..

Grade 2 went to the eye doctor. He told my mother I was faking and nothing was wrong. Fast forward many years and many headaches later. Age 13 got glasses and contacts. I was told I had a stigmatizim and needed bifocals, a problem I was born with,(something about muscles crossing causing blurred vision going from near to far). Made the doctor go out and tell my mom. Still remember the ride home and seeing every leaf on every tree.

People, tea is not expensive at Starbucks. When I get a Venti Tazo tea there, it’s under $3.

I’ve always had pretty good eyesight, perfect for distance and very good for reading, just a little near sighted in one eye. But even with only the nearsighted eye I could read, it was just fuzzy letters that were kind of fuzzy… …Now, neither eye can read without glasses…I have actually left my glasses someplace, and tried to read a simple black and white news paper. I felt absolutely helpless, almost handicapped… . I find it kinda scary, It’s almost like not being able to walk, or something…….

this is cute!

And while they’re at it, maybe they should get the kid’s hearing checked.

Don’t you have any YOUNG readers? The kind that would ask, “What the &%@$ is a blackboard?”…