aging
A good friend wrote in her blog about things her mother didn’t tell her about aging,
8) Your arms will grow shorter in your effort to read work close up. (I now own three pairs of reading glasses. What's up with that?)
I’ve got her beat. I’ve got at least nine pairs of dime store reading glasses. At the recommendation of my eye doctor I started with 1.25s and have since graduated to 2.00s. I’m sure my matriculation through the halls of failing eyesight have not culminated with the 2.00s, but they work for now. I’m not even going to go into cataracts.
I still have all the 1.25s. Don’t ask why I’ve saved them. Does stacking two pairs of 1.25s, one in front of the other, make a “pair” of 2.5s? I save everything. You should see the two-car garage I couldn’t squeeze a bicycle into to save my life. I have four or five (maybe more I can’t account for?) pairs of 2.00s.
The problem is, and one that my friend failed to mention in her blog, as I’ve aged my brain cells have been killed off, turned to mush, gone on vacation, moved so far apart the electrical impulses don’t make their connections, yada, yada, yada. I seem to have a real tough time keeping track of the 2.00s.
I’m trying to read small print on the label of something in a store and have to do a pat down to find them. I have clothes with too many pockets. I don’t really enjoy the pat down, especially in public. It would be different if my favorite redhead were doing the patting, even in public.
I’m in a fancy restaurant. You know the one. It’s got one brown twenty-watt bulb in a dark frosted globe for every ten tables. I’m seated at the table 30 feet away from the “light”. The menu is printed on brown paper in brown ink in some arcane, scribbley typeface. Can you say, “What’s your special tonight?”
My medications (another aging induced goody) are roughly the same size, the same color, with different letters/numbers imprinted on them. The imprints are way too small to be useful in feeling the difference (yet another sign of aging?). I have to take one in the morning and one at night, so just eating one of each is not going to work. Where are those damned 2.00s? The 1.25s I can find won’t work. Why did I save them and why do I know where they are?
Last November I voted. I chatted with the other good citizens while waiting in line for 15 or 20 minutes. I got to the sign-in table and (pat down in public – where’s that redhead?) no 2.00s. Not even a pair of 1.25s (insert expletives)! I fake my way through the sign-in, get my ballot and head for the booth. While looking for the booth closest to the one brown twenty-watt bulb in a dark frosted globe (was this place a fancy restaurant yesterday?) I spot one of those plastic magnifying sheets and grab it. I laid the ballot down: nothing but gray indescribable shapes. I apply the plastic magnifying sheet: no use. I try craning my head around to get a better angle and make use of that light bulb; all I get is a sore neck. I notice one of the poll workers wandering around the room. I ask her if she knows of anyone who might have a spare pair of reading glasses. She thinks so and heads toward the sign-in desk. She comes back muttering something about some moron who signed in on the wrong line, but has a pair of reading glasses in her hand. She hands them to me and says, “I hope these’ll work”. I say, “Thanks, I’ll make ‘em work”. I put them on. A pair of (insert another expletive) 1.25s. I tilt the earpieces up until they’re sticking out of the top of my head. I tilt my head way back; there goes my neck again. Eureka. Gray shapes turn into fuzzy but legible words. I vote. I think I voted according to plan (don’t ask).
Once I got home I searched for the 2.00s. Found all the 1.25s right off the bat and put them in the same place in the garage. Then I find the 2.00s. All within two inches of one another! What’s with that? Do the shoemaker’s pixies come out at night and gather them up and store them for me? What moron would place them ALL in the SAME place and FORGET about it. Probably the same moron who signs in at the polling place on the wrong line.
I put one in the truck, one in my briefcase, take one to the office, put one on the coffee table (have to have it to read the remote), and put one in the garage for safe keeping. Can you buy them by the dozen?
8) Your arms will grow shorter in your effort to read work close up. (I now own three pairs of reading glasses. What's up with that?)
I’ve got her beat. I’ve got at least nine pairs of dime store reading glasses. At the recommendation of my eye doctor I started with 1.25s and have since graduated to 2.00s. I’m sure my matriculation through the halls of failing eyesight have not culminated with the 2.00s, but they work for now. I’m not even going to go into cataracts.
I still have all the 1.25s. Don’t ask why I’ve saved them. Does stacking two pairs of 1.25s, one in front of the other, make a “pair” of 2.5s? I save everything. You should see the two-car garage I couldn’t squeeze a bicycle into to save my life. I have four or five (maybe more I can’t account for?) pairs of 2.00s.
The problem is, and one that my friend failed to mention in her blog, as I’ve aged my brain cells have been killed off, turned to mush, gone on vacation, moved so far apart the electrical impulses don’t make their connections, yada, yada, yada. I seem to have a real tough time keeping track of the 2.00s.
I’m trying to read small print on the label of something in a store and have to do a pat down to find them. I have clothes with too many pockets. I don’t really enjoy the pat down, especially in public. It would be different if my favorite redhead were doing the patting, even in public.
I’m in a fancy restaurant. You know the one. It’s got one brown twenty-watt bulb in a dark frosted globe for every ten tables. I’m seated at the table 30 feet away from the “light”. The menu is printed on brown paper in brown ink in some arcane, scribbley typeface. Can you say, “What’s your special tonight?”
My medications (another aging induced goody) are roughly the same size, the same color, with different letters/numbers imprinted on them. The imprints are way too small to be useful in feeling the difference (yet another sign of aging?). I have to take one in the morning and one at night, so just eating one of each is not going to work. Where are those damned 2.00s? The 1.25s I can find won’t work. Why did I save them and why do I know where they are?
Last November I voted. I chatted with the other good citizens while waiting in line for 15 or 20 minutes. I got to the sign-in table and (pat down in public – where’s that redhead?) no 2.00s. Not even a pair of 1.25s (insert expletives)! I fake my way through the sign-in, get my ballot and head for the booth. While looking for the booth closest to the one brown twenty-watt bulb in a dark frosted globe (was this place a fancy restaurant yesterday?) I spot one of those plastic magnifying sheets and grab it. I laid the ballot down: nothing but gray indescribable shapes. I apply the plastic magnifying sheet: no use. I try craning my head around to get a better angle and make use of that light bulb; all I get is a sore neck. I notice one of the poll workers wandering around the room. I ask her if she knows of anyone who might have a spare pair of reading glasses. She thinks so and heads toward the sign-in desk. She comes back muttering something about some moron who signed in on the wrong line, but has a pair of reading glasses in her hand. She hands them to me and says, “I hope these’ll work”. I say, “Thanks, I’ll make ‘em work”. I put them on. A pair of (insert another expletive) 1.25s. I tilt the earpieces up until they’re sticking out of the top of my head. I tilt my head way back; there goes my neck again. Eureka. Gray shapes turn into fuzzy but legible words. I vote. I think I voted according to plan (don’t ask).
Once I got home I searched for the 2.00s. Found all the 1.25s right off the bat and put them in the same place in the garage. Then I find the 2.00s. All within two inches of one another! What’s with that? Do the shoemaker’s pixies come out at night and gather them up and store them for me? What moron would place them ALL in the SAME place and FORGET about it. Probably the same moron who signs in at the polling place on the wrong line.
I put one in the truck, one in my briefcase, take one to the office, put one on the coffee table (have to have it to read the remote), and put one in the garage for safe keeping. Can you buy them by the dozen?
posted by steve | 10:43 AM
1 Comments:
I will pat you down ANY TIME! I have 3 pairs (one by my computer, one in my purse, and 1 by my bedside table) but have misplaced 1 pair but refuse to replace it since women's reading glasses are so much cuter than men's (and subsequently more expensive). I'm between 1.25 and 1.5 so feel free to mail me your extras. I am trying to have a "trade-in" program at church so we can exchange our 1.25s when we upgrade. This is my karma since I used to make fun of people whose arms were hyper extended. (I even held music for some tenors who couldn't read the sheet music unless it was 2 rows away.) This was one of the funniest pieces I have ever read. Hope we can see each other at the reunion this summer, and I will pat you down then!
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