I am a doppelganger

I won't lie, I'm a cheap ass bastard. I've known this for decades, when I was a kid, the only reason I was willing to go get new clothes was because they simply no longer fit or I no longer wanted to sew them back together. Yes I know how to sew, shouldn't everybody? For a point of reference, when I was fifteen years old, I was short, below five feet tall short and my grandma was just slightly taller than me at the time, and she's a tiny, tiny woman, my sister though, I think she's part Amazon, and is two years younger, was nearing six feet tall while I remained at dwarf height (unluckily she has a back issue and just stopped at five feet, eleven inches, or she'd probably be taller than me now, which I would have had to use a saw to cut her down to size) and she did all she could to make sure I knew it. I had to use a step stool to get something on the top shelf of an upper cabinet, when asked if she could get what it was that I wanted down, her reply was, “Yes. Yes, I can.” And then walk away. She's not always a smart ass but she has moments. For whatever reason, the school kept track of our height and weight, and I was the short fat nerdy art kid, five feet tall and two hundred pounds, and because of those numbers the assholes thought picking on me was a great past time. Of course I fought back but some people just don't get the hint after a busted jaw or a blackened eye. At the end of that year we were all measured again. I think it was everybody, I'm not sure about that now that I think about it. That summer, I grew like Alice after eating cake. To six goddamn feet tall. I went from dwarf to orc in one summer. All I remember was pain for the whole damn summer because my skeleton decided that it was tired of the short jokes and thought a foot of height was worth it. It was, because that was the thinnest I had ever been at two hundred pounds. That school year got me an entirely new wardrobe. Also, I wasn't bullied much after that, except by a couple of douche-bags that I think were getting off on me beating the ever living shit out of them.

I got most of those clothes from K-mart or one of the crappy outlet stores that went bankrupt just after buying my clothing. They thought the newly tall was a trend that would never end, but I was the only one. You'd think making a business plan on fast growing children would be a great success. Full set of new clothes, when Nirvana was all the rage then, and I never got a flannel shirt. I didn't follow trends. I am my own man, dammit. I did, however, have the Doc Martin boots, I stole them off one of the guys that tried to beat the shit out of me, but failed. And I wore those things until they fell apart and duck tape would no longer put them back together. Woe to the vanquished, asshole! And to this day, I still have no fashion sense, no style to speak of, because I just want to be comfortable. Who the hell should care what I look like, as long as it's not ratty or covered in holes. Fuck you, fashion police. I dress how I want.

Yeah they're me.

Of course this doesn't mean I won't spend money where it's needed, I wear glasses, because I am pretty much blind without them, and finding a style that fits my face is a daunting task. I got my first pair of glasses in high school, just after that growth spurt in fact, maybe becoming a tall human screwed up my eyes too. This theory is debunked due to the fact that everyone in my family has glasses. Except my sister. First she's taller than me for years, and then she doesn't have fucked up eyesight. This is bullshit, I'm still claiming she was goddamn adopted. Anyway, the glasses I got for the first time were stupid looking, round and metal and made with glass lenses that were heavy as hell. The second pair, I got the Monday after graduating from school, and they were the same stupid style because “I should be more concerned with what I am looking at, and not how I look.” Thanks doc, that was stupid advice, but at least he put in those light weight plastic lenses. I had those until two years ago, because glasses are expensive and I could not afford new ones. Two years ago, something popped in my right eye and I went more blind in it, to the point that I could no longer draw a straight line with out a ruler. Everything skewing off to one side is a pain in the ass when you work with wood that needs to be straight or level. Paying customers want stuff right before they hand over gobs of cash. So, I got my eyes checked and wham, new glasses, but this time in a style that look like they belong on my face.

Black frames normally go to silly hipsters but have you seen the comedian Brian Posehn? He's got a beard, he's funny as hell, and I think I look like a doppelganger with the same style of glasses.

I see it. It's real.

These glasses, which I paid for out of pocket because no self-employed business owner, with no employees, has any health insurance (that hadn't been forced onto us until a certain law was passed a few years ago, and that is the closest to a political post as I will get. Argue among yourselves about that crap). These glasses cost me a whopping $900. That's right, nine hundred American dollars. Why, you ask? Because I went all out for them, they are made of safety plastic and they have stopped a ton of flying pebbles from my lawn mower from going into my eye, with nary a scratch. I have dropped them from a two story roof and not a dent. I've fallen asleep with them on and they didn't get twisted up being on my face. They tint to near pitch black, except for in the car because that just isn't possible I guess, and they have a similar anti-glare like those expensive Gunners all the computer nerds swear by. Also they're Rayband frames because that was the cheapest brand name I could get. Add in taxes and the three year warranty and the visit to the eye doctor that talked me into taking a picture of my retinas for the glaucoma test, without dilating my eyes, sweet!, and the cost was at that $900 mark. Maybe I added in dinner and travel expenses too, whatever. I have no complaints about them either, I went from near blind to crystal clear and all I wanted was to be able to read what the cable box put in the info part of the screen, from my chair at a six foot distance. I can read that bitch from across the room now. And for driving safely too, I guess.