Tri-Focals Suck

Yeah, I know. Those of you who know me are thinking, "You're wife is going BLIND! You should be glad you can see at ALL!" Well, I am. But if you all of a sudden needed to use a walker, even though your spouse was in a wheelchair, wouldn't you still be thinking, "Damn it"? Sure you would. So lighten up.

I got my eyes examined today (my Republican friends are all saying, "Should have been your HEAD!") and they dialated my eyes, so it was almost ten o'clock at night before I could focus enough to come down here and print off the forms to apply for my son's SECOND Passport. I didn't get my first one until I was almost 40. He's so mistreated because I want him to have a 3.0 grade point before I let him drive. But he's been to Paris. I should be locked up for child abuse.

My eyes are SO screwed up from years of wearing contact lenses, HARD contact lenses, that I can't have corrective surgery. And on top of that, my eyes are SO sensitive that I can't wear soft contacts because the millionth of an inch of difference in focal point between each eye gives me a headache. I could NEVER wear one close vision and one long vision contact. My head would explode. And now, I have trifocals. This limits which frames you can buy. They have to be big enough that you will NEVER be accused of being stylish at my age. And I once tried to have a pair of trifocal sunglasses. Big mistake. I could read books on beaches or in the back yard all summer. I can't play golf, mow the lawn, pick up, "dog bombs" in the back yard because all those activities require you to look down. so now, when I go the beach, I have to use the regular glasses, and a HELL of a hat to block the sun, or I can't read. So I'm not going to pay the additional $300 to have regular sunglasses, AND trifocal sunglasses. I'll just make due.

For my friends who have not gotten to this point yet, and you will if you live long enough, let me tell you some of the other things you can't do with trifocals.

Shop. If your wife sends you to the grocery store with instructions to buy a, spicific product, you better have ALL day to find it. Because even if you're on the right row, you will stand there, your head bobbing back and forth like a pidgon's goes up and down, because every can of everything from every manufacturer, is in a different print size, so you have to be in one of three positions to read it. Three positions, five shelves, hundreds of products. You do the math and tell me how much time it should take you to find, Bush's Baked Beans, Boston Style, 16 oz. can. I'll save you the time. HOURS!

Find a CD. I have a CD case that holds probably, 100 disks, looks like a wine rack. It sits on the floor. It's only about 3 feet high. So I ALWAYS had to squat to see the titles. When I went to bifocals, I had to lie on the floor to see them all. Now? Screw it, I just pick the whole thing up, put it on the kitchen counter, tell my daughter what I'm looking for, and she pulls it out for me. Eventually.

Drive my new cars. You can see the ROAD or you can see the DASHBOARD. You can't do both. Do NOT try to change radio stations, or set the clock in an Audi A6 unless you have on your trifocals and the sun is NOT shining on your dashboard. You have to have all THAT stuff already taken care of, then you put on your sunglasses, and drive away. You can see the speedometer, but changing stuff in your regular sunglasses? Ain't going to happen. I won't even TALK about the Camaro. I'm still learning it after a year.

Golf. Short of filling out the score card and opening a beer, everything you do on a golf course is done, "at distance". Like picking up dog bombs with the dog bomb picker upper.

Watch TV in bed. Unless you buy one of those TV holders they use in hospitals, and mount into your wall WAY up there, no matter how high your dresser, you can't climb into bed, tired, and hope to watch the news, and Jay Leno's monologue and drift off to sleep. You will be looking at it through the part of your glasses that let you read a magazine. You won't get to SEE the weather map, and you won't get the joke when, Jay does, "Headlines".

A few years ago, in an effort to go to bed at a reasonable hour, like my wife, I bought a pair of cheap, single vision, glasses so I COULD watch TV in bed. I lost them within months from non use. But they were pretty cool when the NHL playoffs were on. I could lean WAY back in the recliner and still see the games. So, it sucks to get old, but it sucks a LOT less than the alternative. I'm not ready for a dirt nap.