On the morning my son was born, my wife and I sat in the surgery prep room holding hands. The doctor, young and attractive enough to be an extra on Grey’s Anatomy, explained to us what was about to go down. It sounded gross, honestly, so I was glad when she told me I wasn’t allowed to look over the divider.
Our nerves tightened, our knees bounced. We were about to meet our baby boy.
“Do you have any questions for me?” the doctor asked.
“I do,” I said. “You’ve been doing this a long time, right?”
The doctor nodded. “22 years,” she said.
“Fantastic,” I said, adjusting my surgical mask. “Do you have any advice on how to stop my glasses from fogging up?”
—
That was April, a full month before any sort of mask mandate came down from the governor’s office. But six months later, my battle against condensation raged on.
It didn’t matter where I went. At work, in the grocery store, in the doctor’s office, I’d make it 30 seconds before my glasses looked like Rose and Jack’s car window in Titanic. Surely there’s got to be a better way.
I did what any ignorant millennial does in times of need: I turned to the internet for support. Google is not short on answers for the question how do I stop my glasses from fogging up? It returns just shy of 800,000 hits in less than a second.
And I tried them all. Soap, tape on the mask, glasses placement, rubber bands, even the old snorkeling trick of spitting on them. No luck.
I bought big masks and small masks, bandannas and gaiters in cotton and polyester and microfiber. I bought so many masks, it felt like I was in a goddamn Dr. Seuss book.
Then came the sprays. There’s a lot of sprays that claim to be anti-fog. Most of them, I was disappointed to find, were not.
Until I found Gamer Advantage Fog Away.
—
Of course it was the video game nerds that figured this shit out. They came from a place of extreme need. How were they going to secure the Amulet of Caspardia and advance to the next realm of Gorgon if their glasses were all steamed up with flop sweat?
I’ll admit I was hesitant. I’d been burned by quite a few anti-fog sprays with positive Amazon reviews, and at $15, Gamer Advantage was a bit hefty to never use again. But since I just crossed $2 in lifetime ad revenue on my blog, I was feeling pretty flush and figured what the hell.
It was a gamble worth taking. I can now be mask-compliant AND see the things I’m supposed to see. I can also see the things I’m not supposed to see, like the woman at the bar the other night who picked her nose, looked around to see if anyone was watching, and then swirled her finger in her beer. Gross.
—
Since I discovered it almost a month ago, I’ve been a Gamer Advantage disciple. Every time I encounter someone peering through half-moons of moisture, I dig the little spray bottle out of my pocket.
“May I see your glasses please?” I said to Sheila, the notary who came over to my house last week to sign my mortgage refinance paperwork. She was wearing one of those blue disposable numbers and had just tucked her glasses into the neck of her blouse.
Sheila gave me a strange look, because asking for someone’s glasses is the equivalent of asking for a hearing aid or a pair of dentures. But once I explained what I was doing, she handed them over.
“Oh dear,” she said, taking a deep breath and exhaling through her nose. “It really works.”
I wrote the name of the spray for her, and she wrote down her phone number for me, in case I ever wanted to become a notary.
Thanks for my new career in notarizing documents, Gamer Advantage. I couldn’t have done it without you.
I Don't Belong Here. 