Call Me Mr. Eight Eyes

What’s the big deal with having to wear eyeglasses? My parents both wore them. Most of my siblings wear them. Even my wife and son wear glasses. So why am I so bothered by the fact that I am now wearing them, too?

It’s not so much having a need to correct my vision. When you can’t see, you can’t see. Am I right? There’s no point in squinting so hard to read that you pop a blood vessel in your brain – along with that brand new pimple on your forehead.

Yes, I’m 58 and still dealing with acne. Yay me! Those little, evil, pus-filled parasites borne of teen pores and tough enough to hang on for decades are no friend. I think my pimples are nuclear-grade, but that’s a different topic for another post. The point here is that I have just gotten new glasses…again.

My First Pair of Glasses

I used to wear glasses in my early 20s. That was back in the day when teardrop lenses with gradient tinting were actually cool. Mine were amber, I think. I say ‘I think’ because I’m not a woman. I can only see actual, legitimate colors like red, green, blue, etc. I always thought my old glasses were brown. But someone (a girl, mind you) insisted they were amber. So they were.

Anyway, wearing glasses drove me crazy. The constant weight of 8 tons of ‘ultra-light’ frames and lenses perched atop my nasal protuberance never struck me as exceptionally comfortable. A few years later, when my eyesight had worsened to the point that I needed a new prescription, I opted out.

I was free! I would no longer feel like my nose was being pinched like any 6-year-old cheek within reaching distance of grandma Sylvia. Of course, the world was a little fuzzy, but I made it work.

My Second and Third Pairs

I managed to stay eyewear-free until my early 40s, when I could no longer fake the fact that reading was impossible. I couldn’t see the center field scoreboard at our local ballpark either. I knew what that meant: bifocals. Yes, ladies and gentlepersons. I became a grandpa in my early 40s – not because I had actual grandchildren, but because I was sporting a brand-new pair of black-framed bifocals.

I wore those for a few years despite the nasal discomfort. By the way, wouldn’t ‘Nasal Discomfort’ be a great name for a grunge band covering Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan hits? Anyway, my late 40s approached with the inevitable #1 truth of wearing glasses: your eyes will only keep getting worse.

Mine were outright refusing to focus on anything that I actually wanted to see. Ballgame? No can do. The perfectly cooked pizza right in front of me? Sorry, pal. The only two things I could clearly see at that point were bills and Hillary Clinton’s not-growing-old-gracefully face every time CNN decided they needed to show a living, breathing human being.

I was off to the optometrist yet again for another new pair of eyeglasses. And this time, dear readers, forget the bifocals. My eyes wanted an upgrade to trifocals.

Drive Me Crazy, Please

My optometrist recommended lined trifocals due to a medical condition I have. I told her, “Look, those lines are going to drive me crazy.” Her response? “You’ll get used to them.”

I didn’t. Not only was I back to feeling constant pressure on the bridge of my nose, I now had two little lines, just an inch from my face, staring back at me in mockery. I swear I heard my glasses laughing at me. One day, the left lens said to the right lens, “Let’s make this boy wish he’d never been born.” They did.

Those lines drove me so crazy that I stopped wearing my glasses. I got a cheap pair of readers for the computer and reading (duh) and took my chances with everything else. So what happened?

Everything else eventually got too hard to see without more squinting than the normal human face is capable of. So I took one more trip to the optometrist lady and got a new prescription for progressive lenses. By the way, ‘progressive lens’ comes from the Latin ‘lensay progressious’, which literally means, ‘outrageously expensive because they have a name no one understands’.

So now I’m wearing the equivalent of six lenses across both eyes. You would never know it because there are no lines. Look really closely and you might see dollar signs, just no lines. Between the lenses and my failing eyes, I am working with eight – yes, count ’em – eight visual aids. That’s how I roll now.

You can call me Mr. Eight Eyes. Just don’t make me crazy.