I was born nearsighted and have been wearing glasses to correct my vision since I was 6 years old, and that was 80 some years ago. Wearing glasses hung on my nose and my ears feels normal to me. It feels strange when I take the glasses off to go to sleep.

With the dentist it’s a different story. Having had many a session with a dentist or dental assistant, repairing and cleaning up my mouth and smile, I am grateful to all of them for the pleasure their work has brought me and the pain they have spared me. The technology of today’s dentistry is marvelous and advanced far beyond what we had during the ’30s and ’40s of the last century but “going to the dentist” still doesn’t strike me like a fun thing to do.

I couldn’t find my glasses anywhere. It was midday, and I had taken them off for some forgotten reason in some forgotten place and couldn’t remember why or where. And so, I looked in every place I had been since I got out of bed that morning and couldn’t find them anywhere.

Since my driver’s license says I must wear glasses to drive a motor vehicle on public roads, and since I couldn’t see my glasses anywhere, my wife agreed to drive me to the dentist’s office. In a last-minute flurry of activity, pulled an old, backup pair of glasses out of the nightstand and put them on. It fuzzed up my sight, but then, that’s what you would expect from an old pair of glasses.

At a stop light, halfway to the dentist, she looked over to tell me something, but brightened and asked, “Why are you wearing two pairs of glasses, one over the other?”

And there you have it: double vision! And the moral is: Since you can’t see something if you are looking through it, just ask someone who loves you, and prepare to accept their answer with love. If you are wearing prejudice and are looking for it, you’ll never see it in yourself. And if you wear hatred every day, you’ll never see it in yourself.

Orrin Frink is a Kennebunkport resident. He can be reached at ofrink@gmail.com.