Birth Control Glasses

I guess I’m not so immune from the vanity that inflicts our egotistic species as I would like to think.  I don’t want to look any uglier than I already am, especially in public.  You see, my friends, my spectacles broke last weekend during military training and the only spare pair I could find—buried in a box in the basement—were military-issue “BCGs,” or Birth Control Glasses.  As you can imagine from the name, these frames aren’t the most attractive-looking things you’ve seen, so I’ve determined not to wear them in public.  I’m not blind as a bat, so  I can pull it off.  I have prescription glasses to correct a slight astigmatism, mostly in my left eye, and use them primarily for reading, watching TV, and driving.  I’ve been wearing these S9s (the official military name for BCGs) only in the private confines of my office or in my car, certainly not in the classroom or during faculty meetings.  I made an exception for the three students of my independent study on Thursday, as I needed them while we were sifting through various texts and PowerPoint slides, but I of course had to warn them ahead of time and make a joke about it.

BCGs are clearly a relic of the Seventies, with their thick, wide frames in the color of caca.  Why the Army came up with the ugliest glasses known to man is beyond me.  As testimony to the humiliation that one is subject to when donning this monstrosity, US authorities forced Saddam Hussein  upon capture to wear them.  We actually considered waterboarding him or, as he had done to countless victims, submerging him in a vat of acid.  US and NATO authorities thought the BCGs would be more fitting punishment for the era's most evil dictator.  I bet getting hanged among jeering onlookers was welcome relief after wearing those hideous things!  Anyway, on a positive note, I haven’t impregnated anyone in the last week or so.