No Glasses
By: David De Almo
Tags: Masks, Humor, Coronavirus, Short Story

The worst part about wearing masks during this thing isn’t the mask itself. I thought it would be the feeling of uncomfortability — the warmth, the pulling of the elastics on my ears, the stares of strangers. It’s not. The worst part is my glasses.

I have clear Warby Parker glasses. The same ones I’ve had since 2015. At the time, getting clear glasses was trendy, and I wanted to be trendy — not flashy, I didn’t have enough confidence for that, but trendy. I say they’re the same pair, but that’s not actually true. One cold night in 2016, I took my beanie off entering a bar in Gowanus called The Douglass, and the glasses went with it, falling to the floor — the frames were so cold they snapped in half at the bridge, and I had to spend date night talking with a blurry blonde blob that I assumed was my wife. The next day I went back to Warby Parker. I looked around the store, trying on more stylish frames, but in the end I went with what was comfortable — the same pair of clear frames.

I do that a lot, actually — I’ve bought the same sneakers, Puma Ligas in Navy, every six months or so for years. I do it because they’re comfortable, and I don’t think I can pull off Italian leather. It’s the same with the glasses. The lack of style, not the leather.

At the start of this pandemic, I resisted wearing masks until the governor told us to, and only then did I cut up an old Legend of Zelda t-shirt that reminds me of 35 pounds ago and tied it around my face like a bandanna. I thought it’d be cool to walk around with a triforce on my face, and honestly? It’s fucking cool. Except for the glasses. I try to remember to wear contacts with my mask, but at this point I’ve had them for so long that they feel like they’re attached to my face, an extension of myself, an ocular appendage. So inevitably on a grocery trip I’m halfway down the block before I realize I’m wearing my glasses, and I say I’ll just deal with it rather than turn back around and waste precious time, which is insane because we all have way more time than we could ever use right now.

A few more feet down the block, the fogging starts. My breath catches in the mask, and condensation forms on my glasses, and to put it bluntly, I can’t see shit. I’ve tried everything — shallow breathing, different mask placements, it doesn’t matter. So I just end up wearing my glasses on the top of my head, looking like a middle-aged guy trying to read a menu at Applebee’s and complaining that the lights aren’t bright enough, but I’m terrified they’ll fall and snap on the ground like the night at The Douglass, and if that happens, I’ll have to go back to Warby Parker and buy the same pair of clear frames again, and who knows when that’ll happen in this environment, so I just end up putting them in my pocket. But eventually I make it to the store, and I can’t fucking see any of the groceries, so I have to put them on, and they immediately fog up, so I still can’t see the groceries, so I pull them off to clear them and stick my face directly into the cooler wondering where the hell the 4-cheese Mexican Blend is, because I can’t fucking see the labels whether I have my glasses on or not, and all I want to do is rip my mask off and scream and buy and consume all of the cheese in sight. But I don’t, I just putter on, adjusting my glasses up and down until I find the 4-cheese Mexican blend (it was the last one, no wonder why it was so hard).

But the fact remains, my glasses are a liability, so I walk home without them on. And because of that, I can’t see where I’m going, really. I can’t see the expressions on my neighbors faces, I can’t see the trees in bloom, I can’t see how fast that Uber is coming at me, I can’t see the numbers on the walk signal. I can’t see New York. And I hate my eyes, while simultaneously, paradoxically thinking that they are the only thing about my face that I actually do like.

I’ve worn glasses since I was 9. I was in 4th grade, and I couldn’t see the board, and then suddenly I was a glasses-wearer. One of my first memories of glasses was in science class, when we were going around the room reading one paragraph at a time out loud about beavers. Kayla got to read about their dams, and Codi got to read about their tails, but when it was my turn, I had to read about how beavers touch their teeth together to show affection, and that it’s called — gulp — “kissing.” And a room of 9 year olds erupted into laughter, and as an adult I know that that’s because beavers kissing is hilarious, and not that my glasses had turned me into a nerdy pariah social outcast, but try telling an insecure 9 year old that.

Glasses are the worst. I have always associated them with being otherized. Nerds wear glasses. Bookworms wear glasses. Losers wear glasses. Kids who get bullied wear glasses — Bullies don’t wear glasses. Jocks don’t wear glasses, except when they do, and they look impossibly cool instead of whatever it is I look like.

Have you ever tried to start making out as a glasses-wearer? There’s no cool way to take them off. And usually you forget they’re even there, until you poke your paramour’s eye with the corner of the frames, or they get caught in your shirt, or you bonk the bridge against their nose.

Then there’s sports. I grew up playing baseball, and holy shit, is it awful to play sports as a glasses wearer. I started out wearing my normal frames, but they would fly off at the drop of a hat. I couldn’t get through an at bat without them sliding off sometimes. So then, my parents bought me sports goggles, the kind that Horace Grant used to wear, that wrap around your head with a huge elastic band. It didn’t matter that they were neon green to match my uniform, they looked ridiculous. I knew it, and everyone else knew it too. It marked me as weak. I felt like I was constantly aware of the fact that my eyes didn’t work properly.

Horace Grant, patron saint of sports goggles

And even when I got contacts, those came with their own problems — multi-step care routines, strict limits on how long they could be in, fear that I’d fall asleep with them in and wake up in pain from dryness. Plus they never seemed to let me see with the same clarity that glasses did, and they always felt like something was in my eye, because of course, something was in my eye, and dear god what if they fall out onto the floor? Or fold up and get lost under my eyelid because I rubbed them without thinking?

I hated contacts. But I don’t anymore, these new dailies are a straight up miracle. And when I think about all of the negative feelings I have around my glasses, the thorough feeling of inadequacy I feel when I have them on, and weigh them against the downsides of contacts, there just isn’t a comparison to be made. So if mask-wearing has done anything for me, it’s made me realize that I never want to see those clear Warby Parkers ever again, even if my friends think of me as a glasses-wearer, or if my agent thinks they’re part of my brand, fuck it. I’m a new guy.

I am Dave, Wearer of Contacts and Zelda Masks.

And I’m gonna throw out those fucking Pumas.