Restricted to corrective lenses (7/23 column)

Last week I was looking through birthday cards for my brother-in-law and came across one that struck me. To paraphrase, it said birthdays are like a slap in the face from Father Time. I’m here to say birthdays aren’t the only wake up call that screams, “Hey, you are getting old!”

Very soon it will be one year since Nate and I moved into our house, but last week I finally got around to updating the address on my driver’s license. This was something I’d actually planned to attempt several times, but either ran out of time that day or just plain forgot. For whatever reason Thursday morning, I remembered it was DMV day in Abby. I took a slightly early lunch in order to tackle the job. Everytime I’ve been to the DMV in the past, whether it was in southern Wisconsin, River Falls or here, I found myself waiting around and spending at least an hour there. It’s not my favorite place to be. For some reason, many of the DMV workers I’ve come across have this way of striking fear into their customers. No matter what you do, like filling out the forms or standing in front of the screen for a picture, you just can’t seem to get it right. I always walk in with the fear I’m going to screw up and they won’t give me my license back.

So Thursday I walked into the DMV with the intention of getting an address change. As it turns out an address change now costs $14 (I think it used to be $4). Since my license also expires next spring, I found out I could just renew it for $34. It was a no-brainer. However, the drawback to renewing my license is I had to take a vision test. No problem. I’d passed it before, right?

I do have glasses, although I wear them so infrequently it sometimes startles people when I put them on. I just don’t really like the feeling of having them on my face. I got my first pair of glasses when I was a sophomore in high school. I was struggling in chemistry and noticed I was having a hard time reading the chalkboard. I took a trip to the optometrist and found out my vision was slightly near-sighted. Enough that glasses could help me see the board but I wouldn’t need them to drive. Unfortunately, it didn’t really help my chemistry grade much either.

When my license came up to renew when I was 19, I passed the DMV vision test again without any trouble. My vision was about 20/40, which is right at what the DMV’s minimum standard is to drive without glasses. Two years ago I went in to get new glasses. I’m not really a “once-a-year” kind of person when it comes to visiting the eye doctor. Normally I avoid it until I break or lose my glasses. The eye doctor then told my vision was closer to 20/50, but that the DMV allowed you to squint so I should still be able to pass their test.

Apparently my vision has gotten worse since then. On Thursday I looked into the DMV’s little machine and froze. It was nothing but blurs. I couldn’t even guess what the letters were. I looked up and told the guy behind the counter, “I think I need to use my glasses.” I put them on and looked again. This time they were almost perfectly clear. I rattled them off with no problems. I took the dreaded picture and got my new license. As he handed it to me, he said, “Now, you know you’re restricted to corrective lenses, right?”

“Yes,” I said, slightly annoyed by both the man looking down at me and the idea that I now must wear my glasses whenever I drive. It might be time for contacts.