LIFE: Reading Glasses Anew

I can't use bifocals. Astonishes some, makes others laugh. Nobody sympathizes. Not even my trifocal and bifocal-wearing parents.

When an old school chum, Dr. Rick Thompson, informed me I was now both long-sighted AND short-sighted, I didn't believe him. He's patient. After the realization had sunk in, I got the bifocals. And I got nauseous before I got home. I even tried the ones with VISIBLE lines, the ones designed for the weak of sight AND stomach. Still didn't work.

So, I got two sets of glasses, reading glasses and the normal everyday wearing glasses that have adorned my nose since I was five. I'm approaching a half-century of coke bottle bottoms perched on my nose. They've become second nature. And it's good that I'm used to them, because lasik eye surgery is not in the books for me. Did wonders for my brother Rick, the only family member NOT currently wearing glasses most of the time. Well, maybe not Paige either, but she's headed in that direction.

Having two pairs of glasses can be inconvenient at times, but I have a system that works. Since, by mistake, I ended up with frames on both pairs that is identical (claims that one is gold and one is silver are nothing but outright lies, I tell ya). So, I buy the $1 eyeglass repair kits, the ones that come with the little rubber grommets. I slide the grommet up the right arm, until it rests just INSIDE of eyesight, near the right hinge. I get a month before the grommet loses elasticity and has to be replaced. But that little band lets me differentiate between the two pairs.

All was good until 10 days ago. I didn't CHIP the reading glasses so much as I flaked off the coating. And I was surprised there was any coating ON the reading glasses. Sure, I have the smokey smart lenses on my regular glasses. Great invention. Has cut down on my automatic sneeze upon going out on a bright day down to just about nothing.

Back to the glasses crisis. Right there was a line on the left lens. I rubbed with one of those optician's cleaning clothes to get rid of the line. Suddenly, the line took on the appearance of a mini-Lake Superior. About the right shape, but say only one-gazillionth as big. Maybe three millimetres long by a millimetre wide.

Replacement time!

Off to the local discount emporium. I didn't want to go back to Rick (Doc Thompson, not my brother). I'm sort of late for an eye appointment and I don't have the time right now to go blind for awhile. So I wanted a quickie replacement.

"I'll push this through for you quickly, two, maybe three days," said the earnest-sounding proprietor.

He seemed honest. He took my money. Yet, I am still reading through the lakefront effect. Since I'm not the most anal about keeping my glasses cleaner than a category five virus lab, I have survived the only occasionally noticeably annoying imperfection. But still, I need my new glasses. I hope he's only wrong by a factor of two.

As soon as I get through this month (almost two) of working furiously, I'm declaring a Spring Reading Week. You should SEE the stack of books on the To Be Read shelf.

I know I'D like to.