It is time.
I need to start wearing glasses, full time. Since my mid-forties, I have limped along with “peepers” or readers that I have left strewn about the house. The readers have worked well – it was either that, or get arm extensions to be able to read anything. Thankfully Costco has readers in the economy pack.
However, having to reach for your reading glasses is somewhat limiting in today’s world. Anytime one of my loved ones shoves a phone in front of my face and says, “Did you see this?” I have to say, “Wait, I need to find my glasses.”
The moment is gone – and my kids don’t even use SnapChat.
I am also tired of wearing them down on my nose, and looking out over the top in a perpetual condescending school-marm manor. In addition, I teach Sunday School, and find myself putting them on and taking them off about 3,000 times in an average lesson. It just doesn’t work anymore.
So my loving EC made his-and-her appointments with the ofpthal…opthal…optome… eye doctor. The intake form was written in the tiniest print – which made me wonder if they were clever, or just being difficult. The initial tests were a breeze – the air puff to the eyeball was no big deal. So far, so good.
Then the doctor called us back. She was very chipper. I sat down and she asked me a few questions, and then we began the dance.
“Is this better, or is this?”
“This.”
“Better or worse?”
“Uh. Worse.”
“Is this better or is this?”
“Uuhhh. Can you do the first one again?
“This…or this?”
“I can’t tell the difference.”
…and the dance went on…
I don’t know if it was because I am not very experienced at vision exams, but it seemed to go on forever. I will admit, that I was a little distracted by a thought that kept going through my mind:
Can you imagine taking this woman clothes shopping?
“Honey, which blouse do you like? This… (wait five minutes) …or this?”
“Can I see the first one again?”
“This….(wait five minutes)…or this?
“They both look great sweetheart.”
“What about this one…. (wait five minutes) … or this one?”
Then I realized that it is already kind of that way, and returned my focus to the task at hand. Well, what focus I had.
She asked a few more questions then pronounced me finished. I officially have 20/25 vision. I know, I know, it is still good, but when you have lived your life at a crystal clear 20/15, it seems lousy.
As far as the readers go, I am at +225. So the answer is…progressive lenses. That way I can drive safely, with good distance vision, and also text clearly at the same time. (Honey, that is just an attempt at a joke. I would never, ever text while driving. Or Facebook.)
So we went to the land of glasses to pick out frames. For the record, many people I know look good in glasses. I look like a doofus. That is the reality.
I figure that since my EC has to look at me far more that I do, she should be the one to choose my frames. I used the eye doctor technique to facilitate this process. I would pick up two frames, and try each of them on.
“These, or these?”
“Those.”
Then I would grab another pair. Gradually, it became much like a NCAA bracket system, until she had it narrowed down to two pair. At this point I still had yet to look in the mirror.
I tried on the last two pair – both of which she claimed she liked, and chose one. Easy peasy. So much simpler when you take vanity out of the equation.
When we got home, I noticed a pair of 3D glasses leftover from some movie, and put them on.
My teenage FOML saw me and stopped in his tracks. I said, “I decided to go hipster.” He was briefly paralyzed until he realized I was messing with him. But I swear I saw a bead of sweat form on his forehead.
Within the next few days, I will begin wearing glasses all the time, and complete one more step in my lifelong journey of becoming my father.
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as a military pilot with 20/15 vision till I turned 38, I hated it when suddenly I realized that I couldn’t read the street names from 2 blocks away. talk about a kick to the ego….to discover that you really are mortal and your body is slowly deteriorating. The only reason I got glasses was because the “eye guy” (I’m a pilot not a speller) worked with a lot of pilots and new of our fragile self esteem. It was wonderful…except every eye glass manufacturer wondered why I wanted glasses with such a weak prescription.
I’m lucky that I don’t have to wear them all the time, but I have now graduated to two pair of glasses, one for driving and one for intricate work. — love the articles.
Back in the 40’s I almost failed 2nd grade. The teacher told my parents that it was because I didn’t know my multiplication tables but my Dad took me to have my eyes checked because ‘no child of his could not know the basics of math’. I have astigmatism and a lifetime later am still wearing glasses…I feel naked without them. But on the way home from ordering that first pair I was hating the idea & Dad slowed the car down and pointed to a telephone pole down the road. “When you get your glasses you’ll be able to see a fly on that pole.”
Here’s the rest of what I was saying before interrupted…. Unfortunately, that never happened nor did I ever become a whiz at math but I did pass to the 3rd grade and I have sons that would make my Dad proud.
AuntSue
Organ playing and the computer do not work with standard bifocals or progressives. I found an eye doctor who understood ( his wife plays the organ ) Just give the doctor an good estimate of how far you need to see. I now have standard progressives for driving, movies and tv, and my computer/organ progressives so I can see what needs to be seen and also read any writing, too. I end up wearing the computer ones in the house and the others when I am outside, driving and at church – except when organ and piano playing. Yes it is a complicated world, but I can see.
How did you see the bead of sweat? I thought you needed glasses…?
Agreed, the exam feels like one of those magazine pages for kids: “Can you spot all the differences between these two pictures?” only 100 times worse. I’ve had glasses for about four years now, and it gets easier over time to notice the subtle differences between the stops (or whatever those little glass lenses are that they click down). An eye doctor with patience helps, too. For the first couple years, though, I wasn’t sure that I was leaving the eye doctor with the right prescription.
Love the hipster joke. I had laser eye surgery 10 years ago, but the reading glasses are coming soon. It’s not about vanity, it’s about seeing well! Looking good and SEEING good! (Poor English, whatev.)
I thought I was reading my eye seeing glasses wearing experience, have you been spying on me? I got a prescription for REAL glasses two or three years ago, still haven’t purchased them, mainly because I’m so careless with glasses. I think I’m up to 275 in the readers of which I have a 1000 pair in varying degrees of usefulness, if I could only find them. At church everyone upon the stand/pulpit area is out of focus, I’ve decided it makes me a better listener.
I’ve worn glasses since I was 11 or 12, and “graduated” to progressive lens a few years ago. (Kind of nice to be able to skip the actual bi-focals – thank you technology.) However, what I’ve noticed for the past year or so is that even the progressive lens aren’t any good for computer desk work (no big deal, I just take them off) or playing the organ in sacrament meeting (more of a problem). I need to be able to see the keyboard, the music, and the director, and that means I’m tilting my head backwards most of the time when I’m playing. My daughter says it looks awkward. My ophthalmologist doesn’t seem to understand the problem. His solution was to raise the bench. Doesn’t work that way! Maybe one of these days I’ll get a specific pair of organ-playing glasses, but it’s low on the priority list.
So, enjoy your new glasses and be prepared to get dizzy when vacuuming the carpet the first time while wearing them.
I hear ya on the organ thing. I used to think the previous organist craned her neck like that cuz shes short. But no, im six foot and still have to sit like that to see through my bifocals. I have an optician niece who has a musician mom. Im gonna call and see if she has a solution.
I got some weak reading glasses recently. When I came home after the appointment, I picked up some of my 10yo daughter’s fake hipster glasses and put them on. My EC mistakenly thought they were my new glasses. I asked her how she liked them. To her credit, she tried to say something positive, but her face said it all. Priceless. I should have kept the joke going for a few hours, but I didn’t have the heart.
I’ve had my glasses since I was four. So cry me a river…
(Seriously, I wonder how someone like me could have survived without glasses (easy: I wouldn’t have survived), and I’m grateful every day.)
But you probably looked smarter than all the other kids in kindergarten.
Little kids in glasses are adorable! To adults, anyway. Probably not to their peers. I don’t remember. 🙂
He was pretty cute. Even with broken, taped-up frames. (Older sisters are allowed to say this.)
I got my glasses in fourth grade – thank heavens. My teacher was a firm believer in those filmstrips with captions, and I couldn’t read a one of them. Glasses saved my fourth-grade self-esteem.
I’ve recently entered the realm of trifocals. Now THAT is scary…
Welcome to the world of progressives! My biggest complaint is peripheral vision is a thing of the past. And don’t run down stairs. Learn from my mistakes.
Man, that is funny!
It’s funny until you are in the temple going from one floor to the next and your glasses take you into “focus-limbo” and you miss a step. I do like progressives but even good things have their challenges.
Well welcome to the world of OLD PEOPLE!
Now, I need Splenda Daddy to read this post so he can see that it;s okay to wear glasses full time.
Or get lasik and get the mono vision done. Either way.
For the record, watching someone put on/take off readers fifty billion times during a talk or lesson is the most annoying thing in the world.
Well, next to cats.
Same deal here. When you have had perfect vision your whole life it is frustrating to have to admit that has changed. I love the dig on you FOML. What else do we have children for but to freak them out every once in a while. : ) Enjoy the view!