by Specs4ever
Well, this should have been a long enough interval for people to have read the first part of this tale "Glasses Forever" Now, here comes the sequel:
Hi, welcome to the monthly meeting of “The Society”. I would like to thank you all for coming, and I am pleased to see a number of new faces in the crowd. As most of you are aware, once the original members of this group decided that it was a wasted effort for us to try to eliminate our attraction to members of the opposite sex who wore glasses, strong, or weak, minus, or plus, we changed the name of the group, and have, for the last 5 years been promoting the wearing of eyeglasses. Once we changed our name, we have had a constant increase in membership, and have attracted glasses wearers of both sexes as members throughout the world. We have developed a web site. We have had a lobbyist in Washington for a number of years, and I am pleased to report that he has succeeded in having legislation passed to reduce the number of people who are qualified to have laser surgery. Our hope was, of course, to eliminate it completely, but we are pleased that he has been able to stop anyone from having laser surgery unless their prescription is greater than plus or minus 4 diopters. This, along with more stringent guidelines, and the elimination of the waivers, has reduced the number of doctors that will do this surgery to a mere handful.
I am pleased to also report that our “Bring A Myope To America” program is right on track. We have had some protests from members in other countries, but these protests have largely died down when we advised them that they too would have a chance to court these ladies. I would like to offer our thanks to Harry, from Customs and Immigration for helping us cut through the red tape, and to Peter, for agreeing to hire these ladies to work in his factory upon their arrival. We have 7 ladies arriving here from England this weekend. Two of the ladies are in their mid 40’s, and are both high myopes in the range of –22 to –25D. There are 2 sisters, twins, in their early 20’s, also with strong minus prescriptions. Then there is a widow, who is nearsighted to the extent of –36D, with her 2 younger teenaged girls, one wearing –15D and the other –17.5D. Soon, we will have another group from Romania arriving. For those high plus fans in the crowd, we also have 2 sisters that wear glasses with very high plus lenses, one with 10° base out prisms for both eyes, in this group, along with some more ladies that are severely nearsighted.
As I said, with Harry’s’ assistance, we have been able to cut the red tape, and bring these ladies in as part of a research project that we are doing on eyesight and vision. You have all seen pictures of the first group, and some of you have already submitted bids for the privilege of meeting them. I would like to stress that these ladies are not for sale, but those that place the winning bids, will be given 30 days to attempt to court them. After 30 days, if you are not successful in winning a place in their hearts, the second highest bidder will then be given his turn. Of course, the original bidder will not have his money refunded.
During the past 5 years, we have been selling a very reasonably priced optical software program that was written by the son of one of our members to almost all the optometrists in the country. This program has many benefits for them, and they all seem to like the software very much. And, opticians also like it as well, as it enables them to dial in, and check the doctor’s examination records. We didn’t realize that this software would create problems for some of our members that previously wrote their own prescriptions, but we have since added some imaginary doctors to the database to solve this problem. One of the benefits to this software is that any member can access the prescription of anyone that they wish. So, if one of our members meets someone of the opposite sex who tells them that they wear contact lenses, you can, using your special members only code, along with their name, and date of birth, get access to their prescription. Now you can find out instantly if the prescription is what you want in a relationship. Also, the writer of the program has recently added a procedure that will flag anyone with a prescription of over + or –10D. All the members can access this information by using, as I previously mentioned, your special member’s code. However, I must warn you that all this information is confidential, and must be accessed and used by members only. Anyone who attempts to sell this information, or use it for personal gain will have his or her membership privileges suspended indefinitely.
That is all I have to say. Now we will hear from Irania, who has had lens implants done by one of our member doctors to allow her to become severely nearsighted.
Hi, my name is Irania. When I was a little girl, the extremely strong glasses that my older sister had to wear, fascinated me. Many times I would go to her room, and attempt to wear her old glasses. When I put them on, everything became a complete blur, and no matter what I tried to do, I could not see through her glasses. As I grew older, my fascination for strong glasses never diminished and in fact became stronger. When I was in my early 20’s, I forged a prescription for glasses, and was able to get a pair that was around -2D. By wearing these glasses all the time, I was able to force my eyes to see through them. But, I was not really happy, as I wanted glasses with a much stronger prescription. I married Jack, mostly because I was attracted to his glasses, with their thick minus lenses. We had 2 children, a boy and a girl, and I was very happy that both children inherited Jack’s poor eyesight, and have had to wear increasingly stronger minus lenses since they both were little children. For me, I continued wearing my glasses with the –2D lenses, but last year, I found I could no longer make my eyes accommodate, so I was forced to stop wearing them. I was so lucky to join this group, and find Doctor Bill, who has just given me lens implants to allow me to wear glasses with a prescription of –30D. These glasses are a little bit stronger than the one’s my sister wears, and now I am extremely happy.
Now I am pleased to introduce my friend, Tina.
Hi. I don’t know if you noticed me stumble a little as I came up the steps to come on stage, but I am a natural, very high myope, and unfortunately my vision, which requires a similar prescription to Irania’s, is not really all that great through these thick, -32D myodiscs. It is a great comfort to me to belong to a group that regards my glasses, which to me are thick and ugly, as things of beauty that make me also appear attractive to all of you. And it makes me feel very proud that Irania liked my glasses enough that she used an old pair of mine to wear under plus contacts for the 6-month period that Dr. Bill requires a person to go through, before he will consider doing the lens implants. Before I joined this group, I thought the members must be just a bunch of weirdo’s, but everyone here has been so extremely nice and supportive of me, and my naturally poor vision. Let me tell you though, that I would trade my lousy eyes with anyone here with good vision in an instant. Severe high myopia like mine is actually an affliction, and creates many problems for me. When I was a little girl, I would attempt to go without my glasses, until I had one too many accidents. Eventually when I was in high school, my eyes got so bad that I had to have myodiscs. Now, without my myodiscs, I can see no further than the tip of my nose. I can’t see to read, even with glasses on, unless I bring the pages very close to my glasses. With my glasses on, I am only able to see clearly about 10 to 15 feet directly in front of me. It has been very difficult for me to find employment, because of my poor vision, and I would like to thank Peter, for hiring me at the packaging plant. And that brings me to the main reason for my coming up on stage tonight. Peter has asked me to marry him, and I have accepted. Peter wants children, and because I just turned 29, we are going to have to work fairly quickly for me to have our first child before I reach 30. The wedding invitations are being mailed tonight, and everyone here will be invited to the wedding dance, which is being held right here.
Now, I will turn the microphone over to Fred, who I think you all know.
Hello, I am Fred, and I am a principal at one of the local high schools. I am one of the first principals that were hired as a graduate of an economics and business course at the university. I have never been a teacher. With the teacher shortage and budget deficits, the school board decided that they would try an experiment to see if they could run a school more like a business, and I am pleased to report that all has gone very well over the years that I have been here in town. I have always had an attraction for strong minus glasses, and while I was at the university, I roomed with a chap who became an eye doctor. He fixed me up with plus contacts and minus glasses, which, as most of you know, I wear constantly. When I first came to town, I was shopping at the mall, when I met a lady who wore around a –6D prescription. But, I was more attracted to the thicker glasses that her daughter was wearing. Natalie had a prescription even stronger than the –22D that I was wearing, and was only 3 ˝ years old. I became friends with Monica, her mother, and I would see her around from time to time. A few times, I noticed that she was badly bruised, and I was afraid that her husband was taking out his anger and frustrations by hitting her. She denied it, but one night her neighbors called 911, and when the police came, her husband made the mistake of hitting one of the officers. This got him 3 to 5, and he walked after 2 ˝ years. But, he had not learned his lesson, and he returned to his old ways. One night he made the mistake of arousing the neighbors again, and this time a lot of police came. He tried to go after an officer with a knife, and was shot and killed. Monica had been beaten very badly. She had a concussion, and her glasses had been broken. She called me, and I was able to look after Natalie, while Monica was in the hospital. Monica was left with double vision from the beatings, and she had to have fairly strong prisms of around 15 degrees base out added to her prescription. For some unexplained reason, her glasses had to be increased to around –9D for each eye as well. But, when she recovered, Monica and I married, and I have adopted little Natalie, who has had to have increasingly stronger glasses every year and now at age 16 is wearing double myodiscs with a prescription of –42D for both eyes and a substantial astigmatism correction. I am also pleased to report that Doctor Bill has also given me lens implants to allow me to be able to continue wearing my –22D myodisc glasses. Because of this, Natalie naturally associates closely with me and considers me her real father.
Thanks Fred for sharing your very interesting glasses’ experiences. That is all the true stories that we have time for tonight. I hope to see you all again at the monthly meeting next month, where we can share many more happy glasses-wearing stories. We will now all retire to the other room for coffee and donuts.
Specs4ever, with editing by Aliena
Jan. 2002
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