My husband got Lasik surgery last weekend and he hasn’t stopped bragging about how well he can see. He’s been blatantly driving his car and reading the newspaper, just to throw it in my face. It’s gotten so bad that I’m thinking of getting the surgery myself, even though I watched him get it and it was the grossest thing I’ve ever witnessed (and I had three babies; natural childbirth, with a mirror, people).
Until Braggy McBraggerson went under the laser beam, I was perfectly content with my eye situation. I started wearing glasses in 2nd grade, getting in on the tail end of the cat-eye fad. I weathered through the ‘70s with hard contact lenses, which I was forever losing in the grass or down the drain, then finding them, licking them clean and popping them back in my eyes. In the ‘80s I embraced glasses the size of coasters. And when I turned 42, I started to wear readers on top of my contact lenses and didn’t complain all that much, even though I still try to draw my eye doctor into the argument that if you’re near sighted and you start to become far sighted because of age, shouldn’t your eyesight be perfect 20/20 for the early 40s through late 40s? I can’t find an optometrist who agrees with me. The search continues.
Despite all that, I’ve been just fine with my situation. Putting in contact lenses in the morning is part of my routine; taking them out is part of my nighttime routine. Wearing those old glasses from the ‘80s is part of my late-night and early-morning routine. Occasionally someone outside of my immediate family sees me in them. I tell people I have an ugly sister who occasionally comes to town and dresses in my clothes and drives my car.
But then last weekend my husband, apropos of nothing, went and got Lasik surgery. This is the same guy who won’t discuss anything more invasive than a teeth cleaning. He used to practically pass out when our kids would flick a loose tooth back and forth with their tongue. You could get him to wince just by saying, “I’ll poke you in the eye.” The only part of going to the doctor he didn’t despise was the weight and height.
But he decided Lasik surgery was the answer to his eyesight problems. He even watched a video of a morning DJ getting the surgery, read the Wikipedia entry on Lasik surgery, and he still went through with it and actually had it done.
He took a tiny little Valium, put paper booties on his feet and a hairnet on his head, and walked in there and did it.
The whole procedure took only minutes. The bragging about how well he can see as soon as he opens his eyes in the morning, when he’s swimming, when driving at night, when reading fine print, yeah, well, that’s taking a little bit longer.
I’ve got to get a fast $4,500 and get the surgery. I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this.