Daughter: Mom, look at this picture on my phone. It’s so funny!
Me: Hold on. Just a sec…I need to find my glasses (rifling through my purse). I can’t see without them.
Daughter: Yes. I know.
Me: Here they are! Wait, wrong ones. I need my readers, not my cheaters. Where are they? Never mind, these will work. Oh yes, that’s so funny!
After three minutes of glasses hunting, accidentally putting on sunglasses, and my daughter’s sighs/eye rolls, the humor of the moment is long gone — just like my vision.
In my ignorant younger years, I wanted to wear glasses and even sported fake ones, thinking they looked cute.
Now, at 53, I’m up to my eyeballs in glasses.
I also naively believed that when one needed glasses, a pair of glasses one got. Done. Vision restored. Little did I know by joining the bespectacled set, I’d require 15 pairs of glasses for 15 different applications. Yes, it’s an exaggeration, but that’s how it feels.
One type in my arsenal of eyewear is my “cheaters.” Magnification: +2.00. These are the cheap, TJMaxx glasses sold in a three-pack that won’t allow you to try them on first. (This has led to errors in judgment. Like the time I bought a pack of ridiculously oversized frames, hoping I’d look edgy and cool. No. Instead, I look like a cross between a crazy cat lady and Harry Caray after too many Budweisers. I call these my goofy glasses, and you will never catch me wearing them in public.) Good for: reading in a pinch, seeing my meal, the person I’m eating it with, and navigating ALDI. Bad for: focused reading and driving. Apparently, my eyes are like members of Congress; one eye sees fine with cheaters, but the other can’t see anything clearly. (This led to an eye exam with an optometrist.) I own 11 pairs of cheaters in various shapes and sizes (and cuteness) strategically placed around the house, in my car, purse, and golf bag.
The second type is my “TV glasses” — ideal for the distance from our couch to the TV. Bad for: small print or mindless Instagram scrolling while the Hawkeyes basketball team is on an eight-minute scoreless stretch vs. Truman State. Good for: reading the Hulu menu and revealing how schmutzy my kitchen cabinets have become since the last time I wore those glasses to clean. That pair stays on the coffee table for TV time or before company comes over (cleaning time).
The third type is my prescription readers, which came from a bona fide doctor. Good for: crystal clear reading, but more importantly, discovering (!) and tweezing (#$%*!) overgrown facial hairs in the mirror that my family neglected to tell me about. (Thanks, family.) Not to mention the joy of beholding all my wrinkles in their 5K LED OLED high-def glory. (Thanks, Doc.) Anyway, these remain safely on my bedside table to prevent disappearing into the purse, car, or office abyss.
What’s crazy is I need two more pairs of prescription glasses for two more applications, which I’ve yet to order. One for computer work, simple enough. And another pair of progressives to unite the TV prescription with the reading prescription. This would allow for the aforementioned Instagram scrolling during the Hawks’ scoring drought without having to wear two pairs of glasses at once. Yes, I do that. It’s surprisingly difficult to balance one pair of glasses on top of another. Not surprisingly difficult, however, to look like a dope while doing it.
The truth is, I haven’t filled my additional prescriptions because I can’t imagine adding two more pairs of glasses to my life; it’s exhausting keeping track of the ones I already own (and can never find). The exasperated part of me wants to just wear all 13 pairs around my neck and declare, “to heck with how I look, I just want to see!”
What I truly need are glasses that marry all of my vision requirements into one pair. Done. Vision restored. Do they even make quadfocals? Imagine how massive the lenses would need to be to accommodate that many prescriptions. Why, they’d have to be bigger than Harry Caray’s.
Holy cow! No one wants to see that.
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