I was sitting in the waiting room of the optometrist's office waiting for my vision to correct from the new pair of contact lenses that I had just inserted into my eyes. A young man in a black lab coat with an expensive haircut and Ferragamo glasses that I swore held no lenses, approached me with a too-wide smile for the occasion.

"Hi! How are you today? I'm Chad, and while you are waiting for the doctor, I thought you might like to look over this brochure of your vision correction options. Are you looking to get new glasses along with your contacts today…" He paused expectantly with that fill in your name here expression.

I was at a popular optometry center, Enscrafterslay, which splits the operation between eye exams and a catwalk for designer eyewear.

Now I can spot a corporate sales memo a mile away even with uncorrected vision, and I thought, Sure, Chad. I'll play. I don't want to watch this video on macular degeneration and you look like my best option for entertainment at the moment, so let's go.

"Nice to meet you Chad. I'm Suburban Diva, and I am in the market for new glasses. I would really appreciate your help with that."

Chad's face lit up like a Christmas tree. I saw a steely glint in his 20/40 eyes.

"Fabulous SD! Let's get started right away! What type of frames were looking for today? With your face shape and great hair, you could go with just about anything." Chad and I were going to be best friends.

I pulled out my very worn, tired glasses without a case from the bottom of my purse.

"I don't know, something similar to these. Sans the Teddy Graham of course," I replied pulling a cookie from the ear piece.

"So you like the cat eye, tortoise shell frame, S?" I noted how familiar we got how so very quickly. I thought before nickname usage he could at least give me a latte and a massage.

"Sure, they work. I don't wear them that often."

"And when do you wear them primarily?" Chad asked, plucking down some frames from the wall under the sign that read, "Ungodly Expensive."

"I wear them only at night. Right before I go to bed. Only on the walk from the bathroom to the bedroom when I take my contacts out. In the dark. With no witnesses. My eyes are only open in them approximately 4.3 seconds before I close them for the night."

"OK, so for night vision?"

"Sure, Chad. I count sheep in them, so I guess that means I am going to need Titanium frames and Hope Diamond lenses for accounting accuracy."

Chad takes down an Anne Klein set of frames after unlocking it from a bullet-proof case. They look exactly the same as my old ones, with the exception of the price tag. I try them on, they feel rather familiar, and I realize they are the same pair.

"Well, I guess these are okay. Obviously."

Chad plucks out a couple more, and I can see no difference except that I seem to be growing older with each selection. I don't know why, but all of a sudden this is like some age-acceleration lab experiment gone wrong, and my hair is getting grayer and wrinkles are appearing as the farther we walk down this designer aisle is another step toward middle age.

"Why do all of these make me look so old? Can't I just stick with the pair I have?" I cast aside a pair that I swore Charles Nelson Riley wore on "The Match Game."

"Actually, no. Your eyes got quite a bit worse since your last visit and I don't think your current frames will hold the stronger prescription. It happens as you get older, and pregnancy doesn't help."

I feel my affection for Chad waning.

"I've got to tell you, Chad, I'm not loving this. Especially since I really don't wear glasses all that often--I'm more of a Bausch and Lomb kind of gal," I said.

Chad will not be deterred from this sale. "Well, as you approach your due date, you're going to wearing your glasses a lot more."

Oh no, you didn't, Chad.

I realize that Chad has been schooled in the Vision Arts with a pamphlet and a Power Point presentation, and he probably has amassed a vast amount of knowledge on the subject of prenatal ocular conditions, but I know just a little something about birthing babies, Miss Scarlett. I've done it a few times in a few different circumstances, and not once did my contacts fly out of my head nor impede delivery in the least bit. Will my eyeballs swell as well as my ankles? It's pregnancy, not a goiter. I wonder what I have missed, but I hate Chad now so I just want to be done with this exercise in humility.

"OK, I'll just take that first pair."

"Excellent choice. Now, let's talk lenses."

Actually, lenses are the last thing I want to talk about, but Chad needs this forum in which to wow me with his bulletin board knowledge. And to fulfill Step 4a in the employee manual.

"You should consider the scratch resistant lens and with anti-glare. It's the top of the line in lens technology."

"Well, my pillow doesn't often scratch my lenses, but I suppose one can't be too careful, what if I switched to goose down?" Chad nods sympathetically. "And that glare from the alarm clock glow can be awfully annoying."

"And don't forget about getting up in the middle of the night with the new baby. What number child is this for you? Wow, you don't hear of many people having four kids anymore."

Now I want Chad dead. If there is one thing that I hate is a casual (usually insulting) remark about my fertility from perfect strangers. I have been wearing glasses--even ones that were actually made of glass at one time--longer than Chad has drawn breath on this earth. And suddenly the relatively simple process of choosing these glasses has become extremely complicated, painful and a running social commentary on prenatal and geriatric eye care. It's not my age or condition that is causing my current vision problem, but the tears that have formed if I have to spend one more second in Chad's presence.

He rings up my order, and I hope that the baby is pretty because I can't afford to send him to college now, and Chad is so not invited to his graduation.

"See you in about an hour!"

And at that moment I knew that even Enscrafterslay couldn't make my new glasses rose-colored enough to repair my short-sided friendship with Chad.

©2007 Tracey Henry

Divamail me! Divamail@SuburbanDiva.com.