SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
McALLEN — In a move officials are calling “poetic, and also $41 million,” UTRGV announced it will convert the former Monitor newsroom on Nolana Avenue into the state’s third school of optometry, finally answering the question Valley readers have asked for decades: what if the building that ruined everyone’s eyes could fix them?
“For years we printed classifieds in 8-point type and horoscopes in 7-point type, and now science has caught up with us,” said a fictional university spokesperson, Dr. Enfocada Vega, standing beside a copy desk being pried out to make room for a phoropter. “The press room becomes the waiting room. The morgue — where we kept old clippings — becomes the dilation room, because everyone in there saw blurry anyway.”
Construction begins in late September, which administrators admit is ambitious given the school is only in stage two of three accreditation steps. “We’re renovating before we’re accredited, which is very Valley of us,” Vega said. “You don’t wait for permission to build an addition onto your house. Same energy.”
Willacy County Remains Invisible, But Comfortably So
Officials cite a severe shortage: only 110 licensed eye doctors serve the entire Valley, and Willacy County has zero, a fact Willacy residents say they would be outraged about if they could see the paperwork. “First eye exam at 55 is basically a quinceañera with drops,” said one fictional longtime optometrist in Harlingen. “Half my patients waited so long they thought the 10 Express was genuinely blurry for everyone.”
The Doctor of Optometry program will be Texas’ cheapest at roughly $84,989 total — a bargain officials attribute to “recycling the ink fumes” still trapped in the building. The inaugural class of 40 students in Fall 2027 will train on the only eye charts the Valley already trusts: laminated E-editions of old Monitor front pages. “If you can read a 2009 high school football box score,” Vega said, “you can read anything. Including your bill.”
Headline Writers Demand Reclassification as Medical Device
Former newsroom staff are petitioning to have their old headlines designated prescriptive devices, arguing decades of puns constituted a form of vision therapy nobody ordered. “Every headline I wrote was a dilated pupil experience,” said one fictional retired editor. “Now they’ll dilate pupils on purpose. Full circle.”
University planners say clinical space should open by January 2028, at which point the Valley will finally achieve 20/20 vision — just in time to read the fine print on the $41 million invoice.
