To answer many inquiries over the years: No, I do not intend to ever have LASIK surgery. I'll have the cataracts fried off when necessary, but before then, nobody cuts the corneas. Despite one optometrist shouting, inches from my face, "My god, your eyes are bulbous!" they are my only set and I'd rather just leave them alone.

I've had glasses since second grade. Not only are they part of my identity, they also qualify as my only fashion accessory. My face would feel naked without them.

I will not take off my glasses for photographers concerned about glare. When I lost my driver's license, the DMV practically had to threaten me with deportation so I would remove them for a new picture. Apparently, current security regulations classify glasses as a disguise. As an illegal alien, Superman used them successfully.

I chose to keep my myopia secret as a child. I recall no glasses hatred, so my motivation is unclear. Perhaps it was disguising vulnerability, similar to being woken by the phone, yet insisting to the caller in a groggy voice that no, they didn't wake you; you were just watching television with your eyes closed. Maybe I just liked seeing the world in a different way.

My mother was suspicious, despite many clever ploys. She quizzed my brother and me about geographic locations at one cafe we frequented with wall maps. I shot out of the station wagon, cruising the restaurant perimeter before anyone else came in, refreshing my memory on which blob was which continent.

One day my mother posted a magazine eye chart (with pictures instead of letters) at the end of the hall, pacing off twenty feet.

"What's the top picture?" she asked.

"A triangle," I answered, squinting.

"What kind of triangle?"

I responded, "The kind with three sides."

It was a sailboat. Test over.

Sparkly cat-eyes soon followed. Next were black cat-eyes, John Lennon wire frames, a series of face-swallowing squares that weighed several pounds (when glasses were still glass), gradually diminishing in size; at one point even losing most of the frame, the nosepiece attached directly to the lens. I do not recommend that incarnation to mothers of young children; repair is impossible when a toddler snatches them off your face. Dangly pierced earrings are also inadvisable during that life stage.

Due to peer group pressure, I toyed with hard contact lenses in high school, but could never get over the foreign body in my eyes sensation. Also, it was disconcerting to lose them, only to find they had slipped to a remote part of my eyeball. Astigmatic soft lenses were also a failed experiment, after cutting jalapenos before removing them, permanently and painfully altering their chemical composition.

One son who inherited my ocular weakness chose corneal reshaping therapy. He wears special hard contacts when he sleeps, correcting his vision for the next day. I'd rather just fumble for the trusty glasses on the nightstand, bringing the world into focus.