A childhood belief about appearance

Ok, my brother had glasses since he was four years old. Without them, he was nearly blind. His glasses had plastic lenses that were always getting scratched up when he crashed into stuff. My parents always told us to be nice to him because he had so many problems.

One day, my dad told me to never to hit someone who was wearing glasses. This piece of wisdom made sense to me because my little brother had enough problems as it was; he didn't need someone beating the hell out of him on top of his already significant issues. I mean, you wouldn't go around kicking the tar out of people in wheelchairs would you?

I always assumed that the lenses in glasses were made of plastic. I worked in the navy as a guy that ordered glasses for my squadron, all of those lenses were plastic so I assumed that ALL lenses were plastic.

Years later, my wife had purchased glasses with actual glass lenses in them. Right after she got them, she ran into a wall and almost broke her glasses.

I remember saying, "Wow, that could have been dangerous. If the lenses actually broke, you could have gotten the broken glass in your EYES!"

Two realizations hit me at once...

1. You don't hit people that wear glasses because the glass shards might get in their eyes. Duh.

2. They are called "glass"es for a REASON!

I was 27 years old at the time.