I wore my sunglasses last night
Because I'm really not very bright
I got in a plane and flew very far
And left my regular glasses in my car.

— Will Truman (@trumwill) February 1, 2018

So last week we went to Disney World. And, as indicated in the above tweet, I did not bring any glasses. This was doubly frustrating because the possibility of leaving the sunglasses in my car is something I’d thought about. And it wouldn’t have been difficult to throw a spare pair of glasses into the suitcase just in case. But I didn’t. And when I got past security I realized that my transition lenses hadn’t transitioned. Because they weren’t transition lenses.

Fate did throw me a bone, however, because I had some contacts in my toiletry bag. The only problem is that I didn’t have any sunglasses. My eyes are sensitive enough that if I have to choose between wearing sunglasses indoors or contacts with no eye protection outdoors, I’ll take the former. I should have just purchased some sunglasses at Disney World, but I was irrationally thrifty.

The end result is that on the big first day, I was wearing sunglasses. When I say “the big first day” it was the day that we went in the morning and Lain and I didn’t leave until dark (or, in my case, really really really dark). Also, because of the way things shook out, I missed a couple of dimly lit indoor rides where I could barely see what was going on.

Despite being out of practice, the contacts went into my eyes seemlessly and I wore them the rest of the trip (with sunglasses).

Now I’m back and I know once I switch back to glasses, I’m probably not going to use these contacts again.

It’s a weirdly different experience wearing contacts after all this time. I haven’t worn any in at least two years. Once I got prescription sunglasses, I rarely felt the need. I see better with glasses. Except I can’t entirely. The world looks wonderful through my contacts. No fingerprint smudges. No dust. But I can barely read. Because of my astigmatism, I lose some of the detail front and center.

It reminds me of a Batman Animated Series episode where Bruce Wayne is stuck in a dream. Everything is vivid and life-like, but because it’s a dream he can’t read anything. (Which I think is a myth, actually, but I’ll roll with it.Photo by n4i.es