You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Your first.
Your first car. Your first love. Your first Tommy’s double Chilli Cheese Burger.
Yum.
And now another first.
My first pair of prescription Eye Glasses.
I’m not tallking the magnifying glasses you buy at Publix that make little words seem like bigger words.
I’m talking, hard core, corrective, Ben Franklin was here type bi focal lenses.
I may not feel it. I may not look it.
But it’s happened.
Old age has slapped me upside my noggin.
I’ve made it a long time with these baby blues.
Lately, things are a little fuzzy.
For weeks, I’ve been squinting at words trying to force them into focus.
For a while, I could mush my eye balls with my cheek bones and scrunch my nose like Bewitched and I could get my pupils to alter just enough so I could make out words.
Then? Bam.
Like a coke bottle to the head, I was Stevie Wonder’s little brother; “No Wonder”.
I first noticed the problem at work.
People at the end of a very long hallway would wave to me.
I could sense they were human. I could see them wave. Problem was, I couldn’t see them. I couldn’t tell if they were men or women, black or white.
Cripes, it could have been a unicorn waving its horn at me.
So while i squished my cheek bones and furrowed my eye brows, trying to force the image into focus, I wasn’t waving back.
“That’s guy’s an Ass**** I swear they would say.
My lack of perceived friendliness at work wasn’t the deciding factor for getting new glasses, my fear of driving off the road was.
Driving at night, especially in wet weather became, let’s say, challenging.
Reading street signs at 40 mph?
I’d have a better chance of running anchor leg in the 4 x 100 m relay.
So I’m in the eye glass store in the mall.
I walk up to the young clerk for help. He is hip and assisting other old blind people, like myself.
“I’ll be right with you,” He says, his eyes twinkling with clarity. “The men’s glasses are on that wall there, and that wall over there,” he points.
I smile. “thanks.”
I start trying on frames.
Too hip. Too old. Too thick. Too dark.
“This one makes me look like a skate punk on dope,” I mutter to myself.
Damn I look old.
I feel like an old man librarian.
Is that really me in the mirror?
How did this happen? Where did all the years go?
Eyes, why’d you let me down.
I try on frame after frame.
Then, across the store, I find invisible frames.
They are glasses, but without all the frame fan fair.
I try on the first pair and stare in the mirror.
“Not bad.”
I tilt my head side to side.
Not bad. If you gotta go four eyes, this is not a bad choic.
I laugh.
The young urban salesman with the 20/20 vision pops over.
“And we’re having a sale. 2nd pair free,” he says.
“I can get sun glasses for free?”
“Schnizzle that.” he says.
I laugh. It’s as if Snoop Dogg is helping me see again.
So I pick my two glasses and he punches in my corrective information while telling me my glasses look “Dope” whatever the hell that means in eye glass parlance.
Then he drops the corrective vision bombshell. “That’ll be $785.00”
Ouch.
Huh?
He shows me the bill.
Old age costs.
Each lens is like $255 apiece.
I think for a moment. Do I want to pay almost $800 dollars or do I want to use my hands to squish my forehead down on the bridge of my nose, contorting my pupils into a convex lens of clarity.
I pull out my debit card.
Old Age Sucks.
Sure hope those ambiguously defined humans at the end of the hallway at work appreciate this.
Life’s Crazy™