Tell That To My Feet!

It gets a little tedious having to squint to see the words on television.  It's even more tedious to have to sit exactly three and a half feet in front of the screen so everything makes sense and you don't have to say, "Why is that panda screaming like that?"  Only to hear, "That's a police car dad."  So I got my eyes checked.

For those of you who are my Facebook friends, you have already heard the short version of the visit in the form of my status.  I believe it was, "Trifocals? Are you serious?"  For those of you who are not my Facebook friends, here you go..."Trifocals? Are you serious?"  (As a side note, if you want to ask me to be friends I wouldn't mind...I have to do something to keep a higher number of friends than my teenage daughter...I'm competitive that way.  Tell me you are from Slovenia, I'll totally believe it.)  Actually, I have been telling people, at work, who laugh at my jokes, "You think that is funny, you should read my blog."  Now I am telling people who are reading my blog, "You think this is funny, you should read my Facebook statuses."  There you go, the cycle is complete.  Cue Phil Collins singing "The Circle of Life."  If enough people jump on board I may never have to speak again.

Back to the eye doctor, not literally...I promise to finish this first...of course I do need to constantly squint so that the drivel I am writing is visible.  Sometimes though it's better if I don't know what I have typed.  It helps me sleep at night.  But I digress...

In the beginning, there were bats...and they were blind...and these bats made fun of my eyesight.  I never knew that I couldn't see, it was just my version of normal.  Kind of like when my parents bought me a Lite Brite for Christmas.  If you were raised in a cave, in Slovenia, allow me to explain that toy.  It is a box with a light bulb inside.  The front has a screen that looks like honeycomb but with round holes instead of hexagons.  This screen holds in place a sheet of thick black paper that had letters that showed through the holes.  Then there were these bags that had tiny little pegs inside...and they were labeled, "Blue, Red, Orange, Yellow..." you get the idea.  Then you take the pegs and poke the orange one through the hole that said "O", The blue one through the hole that said, "B", and so on.  I feel that, having the smartest readers in the world, I do not have to explain further.  Well I dutifully poked my little heart out, pulling the correct pegs from the labeled bags, the black paper blocked the light and glowed through the colored pegs, and I ended up with a very colorful hot air balloon that, if I do say so myself, rivaled that of the great masters of the Renaissance.  And then I took out the pegs.  (Here I need those first four "dun dun dun dunnnnn" notes)  Mom was great, she let me use one of our matching salad bowls, they all said Cool Whip on the side, to put the pegs in after I took them out.  Then I put in the next black piece of paper and reached into the tub of pegs which had magically turned all the same color.  Yes, Lite Brite was the magical toy that can be played with once...if you are color blind as well as wildly farsighted. 

As an aside, please do not send me swatches (That's right I said swatches) of fabric asking, "What color does this look like to you?"  That's been done.  It is a curious thing really.  People cannot refuse to ask about my malfunctioning ocular parts the first time they hear.  I have never gone up to a diabetic and said, "Show me how your body doesn't process this candy bar."  or up to a person with a prosthetic arm and said, "Can I lend you a hand?"...oh wait I did do that. 

Still I didn't know that I was blind, or color blind, until I took one of those screenings at school.  They recommended that my parents get my eyes checked.  So I got my first pair of glasses...as an awkward overweight pre-teen...I always suspected that God had a well developed sense of humor.  And I have had glasses ever since then...until five years ago on Sylvia's birthday.  I won a radio contest and the prize was one free eye of laser surgery.  It was great.  I went to the evaluation, I found out that I was not only generally and chromatically blind I also had eyes that were shaped like identical little football ends.  They could fix it!  But it would cost more than we could afford. 

Enter my dad.  He thought, if there is a chance I didn't need to walk around with coke bottles strapped to my face we ought to give it a shot.  He covered the cost, the lifeless personality-less doctor handled the surgery, and I haven't worn glasses in years.  Until apparently, precisely now.  If I want to stop having headaches, or be able to read, and stop bumping into things, I will need to get glasses to see close up, see distances, and see the mid ranges.  But other than that...my eyes are great (even if I still can't see colors).

My new assignment is to pick out frames to house the new lenses.  They call the lenses "progressive" but that is just code for trifocals.  I feel like I have been run over by the old age bus.  The doctor explained that I was not getting old...I am old.  He then said that my eyes healed too well.  The surgery was a success and my eyes healed beautifully.  Unfortunately, my body thinks "healed" means to go back to far-sighted football eyes that need lenses to see everything.  I just wish the reset button that made my eyes go back to the way they were when I was a kid would work on my feet!   But I would like to say that I definitely am NOT old!  Now if you'll excuse me I have to go tell the kids that their music is too loud...before I tell the neighbor kids to get off my lawn!