"Why are people always trying to brag about how bad their eyesight is?"

Ken adjusted his glasses and shrugged. "People brag about their eyesight?"

My arms flailed about furiously as I nodded. "Hells yea. People are always saying, 'How bad is your eyesight?' 'Well, mine is worse.' 'Oh yea, I can't even see that sign over there. I'm as blind as a bat.' I'm so sick of that."

"Ah, I know what you mean. Everyone seems to do that, huh? Maybe…" he looked out the window thoughtfully. "Maybe it's because people are competitive, and once you start talking about eyesight, trying to one-up each other becomes a competition."

"Competition, huh? That's lame."

Ken took a slow sip of his espresso. He put his cup down and cleared his throat. "So how bad is your eyesight?"

I cast him the People's Eyebrow. "You're going to ask me that too?"

"No, no, no, I don't mean to sound competitive about it. I'm not going to brag about how bad my eyesight is."

I crossed my arms. "Good."

"Even though…"

I groaned.

"Even though, my eyesight IS pretty bad, you know."

"Here we go again," I muttered. My eyes rolled so far in the back of my head that I could see my brains throbbing in exasperation.

"Really. Take a look at my glasses. Here, take a look." He handed me his glasses. I peered through them, and then directed sunlight through the lens. We sat in silence as a napkin began to smolder.

I tossed the glasses back to him. "Yea, okay, you're pretty blind."

"So how blind are you?"

I looked out the window. There were signs everywhere: traffic signs, billboards, store logos. "I probably couldn't read any of those signs without my contacts."

Ken squinted out the window. "I can kinda read Starbucks right there. You really can't read that?"

"Without my contacts, probably not."

"Bullshit. What's your vision?"

I sighed. "Are we really doing this?"

"C'mon man, that's bullshit. My vision is like 20/100. Twenty to fricken a hundred. How blind is that?"

I swirled my white chocolate mocha around. Ken put his glasses back on and studied me.

"C'mon, what's your vision? You can't be worse than me."

"Dude, what was I just saying? You're really bragging about how bad your eyesight is? Really? Why don't you brag about something else. Like how good your jump shot is, or how much money you make. Hell, brag about how you know everything about cars, anything. But don't brag about how bad your eyesight is. That's like bragging about how small your dick is."

He shook his head. "You're just bitter because your eyesight isn't as bad as mine and you know you're losing."

I took a slow sip of mocha. As I carefully placed the cup down, I exhaled all the exasperation in my brain. "You know that big E in the eye doctor's examination room?"

"Yea?"

"Without contacts, I can't see that."

Ken blinked. "What?!"

"That big E represents 200 feet."

He blinked again.

"That means my vision is worse than 20/200. My eye doctor told me he doesn't have instruments that can measure exactly what my vision is. All he knows is, my eyesight is worse than 20/200."

Ken sat up in his seat for a moment. His mouth was agape. Slowly, he slumped into his chair with sagged shoulders. He took his glasses off, cleaned them, and put them back on again.

I took a few more sips and leaned back, staring out the window the whole time.

Ken shook his head. "Shoot. Okay, you win. Your eyesight is fricken bad. You're as blind as a bat. Worse. You're blinder than a bat. You're… you're just fricken blind." He threw his hands up. "You win."

As I looked out the window, I grinned. Yes, I won!