The Supernatural Powers of Contact Lenses

By Rami Abdo

Every day, I used to ritually stoop on one knee before my dresser and give thanks to my supernatural contact lenses and the powers they bestow on me before I put them on. Actually, I knelt down because I was too lazy to move my chair to the dresser, and I didn’t really pray, except for when I slapped them on and hoped there was no hair follicle jammed in between them and my eyes. For those who never experienced this sensation, imagine someone scratching you in the eyeball with a scraggly dirty jagged fingernail and laughing in your face as they do so. Yes, it was that pleasant. The part about the powers is true though, in some sense, and anyone who transcended the path from spectacles to contact lenses will know what I’m dribbling on about.

To have powers from your lenses like Superman’s laser beams or X-ray vision that you can project at will? Yes please. Don’t own any scissors? No problem! Just use a laser beam to tear through the paper and the walls of your house for any shape you like. Missing car keys? No Worries! X-ray your couch, fridge and cat to spot those pesky hidden culprits. Or impress your friends by predicting what colour their underwear is, then burn their pants off and prove it! The implications are endless. But let’s push your weird fantasies aside for a moment; contact lenses actually do have a profound impact on life, whether people like it or not.

It started at a young age, creeping up on me like a slithering serpent in the shadows, always freezing on the spot when I looked directly at it, casting the illusion of doubt whether it existed or not. In other words, I was in denial. The initial traces of myopia had invaded my sight, and initially I blamed fatigue, fuzzy computer screens and my teachers’ handwriting; anything so long as I didn’t have to face the prospect that I would need glasses. The horrors that glasses would have inflicted on my non-existent social life was unfathomable. I already couldn’t approach girls without turning fifty shades of red and sweating like Mel Gibson at a Bar Mitzvah; Imagine what would happen if I approached them wearing goggles? However, when my desk was two meters ahead of the rest of the class and was straining my eyes on the blackboard harder than Jerry Lewis, I knew it was time to end the charade.

Once again, society and the rest of the world (Because surely I couldn’t be to blame!) had done the wonderful job with its stereotype-spewing machinations in convincing us that glasses make us ugly, unpopular, unattractive, unwanted, and ironically enough…smart. So there I was, thirteen years old, no self-esteem but plenty of zits, standing at the opticians counter while mommy tells me to choose one of the spectacular spectacle designs and all I’m thinking is: “Which one of these will I use to protect my virginity?” All I needed was suspenders, a chequered shirt, and a runny nose and I would complete my dream of becoming Wedgie Champion. No girl would ever want to go out with me now; I would have to do something drastic like develop a personality...yech. The slithering, creeping serpent had pounced when I wasn’t looking and bit me in the butt. Life became a miserable dream I desperately wanted to wake up from.

But for darkness to exist there must be light. My knights in shining armour came in the shape of two, transparent, round, floppy, soft, fragile little heroes (There’s no way I could say that without sounding a little bit gay). They were so minuscule yet they drastically renovated my life. Without them I was Clark Kent, shy and shrivelling and cowardly in my bottle cap glasses, virtually nonexistent to the opposite sex and a general failure in all things social. Then I would find the nearest telephone booth (my dresser) and take those heavy bifocal things off and replace them with contact lenses...TA DAAA... A 180 degree transformation, from puny to pundit, from worm to wyrm, from introvert shy to international spy.  My confidence swelled to bursting point as my enemies fell bloodied before my wake of destruction; women all over the world instantly paused whatever they were doing in flustered confusion, aware that something infinitely masculine had just came to be; My self esteem bolstered, I would stare at pathetic mortals in the eyes until they cowered into the dark corners from whence they came. In realspeak: people would look at me without an immediate assumption that I was a nerd, I took more daring risks with sports without the fear of shards of broken glass jamming themselves into my iris, and I socialized with the opposite sex without any preconceived notions of epic failure messing my mojo.

It is now that I can think clearer do I realize that it was these preconceived notions that I created on my own that were setting me up for failure.  When originally I had thought that girls would ignore me if I wore glasses, I now realize that they never did, before or after I would put my lenses in. It was all part of the diabolical plan of the stereotype-spewing social machine that I mentioned earlier. It involved a self-fulfilling prophecy that was created by many, many other insecurities I instilled on myself, with no one to blame but myself. As far as glasses went, here’s what happened. I had implanted an idea in my head long ago that people with glasses were uncool, ugly, and geeky (saved by the bell and family matters also had something to do with it). When I ended up with them myself, I went around assuming people thought the same thing I did. As the thought grew and spread in my mind like a self-perpetuating virus, torturing and corrupting, I started believing it true in its entirety, so much so that I ended up manifesting false assumptions in order to confirm my worst fears. If someone refused to date me for example, I would blame the glasses, which confirmed my (false) suspicions that they make me unpopular and unattractive. It was all downhill from there as I started ‘sabotaging’ my thoughts and actions with this self-destructive belief in order to prove its existence.

When I finally cast aside my poisonous glasses for the breath of fresh air contact lenses, they seemed to grant me supernatural powers. They erased the prophecy and let me re-write my destiny. I began to think that without glasses people would no longer be repelled by my hideous visage, running to the hills to gather their pitchforks and flaming torches in order to return with strength of numbers to banish the monstrous creation that is my ego. I started believing that so much so, that a new prophecy was created, this time in reverse, convincing myself that without glasses I was more desirable and outgoing than ever before. I had the courage to ask out girls, and with my confidence booming, they said yes. Except the ones who said no, but they don’t count because they were mentally imbalanced, or at least that’s what I tell myself to help me sleep at night.

It seems that I am just skimming the surface here on a subject too intricate and unfathomable in its implications on what it does to our beliefs and expectations of others and ourselves based on simple insecurities. The topic of self-fulfilling prophecy is one that can be applied to anything, from the reason behind all those blonde jokes to the reasons behind racism.

Contact lenses also helps with another stereotype, inappropriately called ‘the ugly duckling syndrome’. This basically means someone who thought they were unattractive as a youth resorted to other activities such as reading and learning to make up for the lack of social activities. That’s why wearing glasses also that someone, look ‘smart’, because people ‘assumed’ he or she spends more time reading than socializing. As this person changed, whether by the removal of glasses or by hormonal fluctuations, it might have resulted in them becoming more attractive and thus popular. The result was a smart beautiful person!

Of course I was willing to endure the hardships of contact lenses in order to reap all those succulent benefits. This included an inflated cost and dedicated time for their maintenance and care, not to mention the constant eye irritations with the sun, wind, dust, or in fact any element of weather imaginable. Staying somewhere overnight meant having to carry around a bag of tools for my eyes, and opening my eyes in the sea was an invitation for all the demon lords of the seven hells to slather my eyes with their fiery breaths of garlic infused vindaloo curry. The tortures were so great that I became willing to forsake all my social privileges, all the late night rave parties, all the glamorous women flocking at my feet for a scrap of my manliness crumbs (ok that last one is a bit stretched), just at a chance to have a carefree day where my eyes are free and clear. The glasses were dusted off and proudly placed back onto the bridge of my nose where they belonged. They made me realise what a fool I was, listening to that inner voice that fed fuel to my insecurities. I retired the contacts into their cursed little containers and stuffed them into a deep box in the darkest corner I could find, safe in the knowledge that their reign of terror was over. The supernatural powers weren’t worth it.

Since then I carried out the eye laser operation and went through a whole other transformation. But that is another story and messes up the moral of this one so I won’t mention it at all...