Last year, I got a gentle scolding from my opthamologist about showing up a little more often than every five years to get my eyes checked. That was also the appointment where I was gifted with a pair of bifocals for my 39th birthday. Lovely. So, like any dutiful patient (LOL, how many of those do YOU know?) I showed up again this year thinking that there was something seriously whacked with the glasses or my eyes or both.
‘I can’t read or sew or crochet wearing these stupid things. They spend more time atop my head than a cheap toupee on a bald guy’s pate’ I whined to the technician. To be perfectly honest, I can’t crochet with or without the damn things. And in the interest of full disclosure, I’m sitting here typing this out with my glasses, you guessed it, on top of my head.
Mind you, the technician was one of those medical professionals without a sense of humor. Are they all like constipated drill sergents or is it just me? So, she slapped one of those eye cover doohinkies (that is the technical term, BTW) in my hand, told me to cover my right eye and read the characters, then repeat with the left. This is the point at which I admit to memorizing the characters and just repeating them for the other eye. Yes, I’m aware it’s cheating but I already wear glasses. You think I’m gonna walk out WITHOUT them as my punishment simply because I can cheat like any respectable middle-schooler? Whatever.
Then, I get a card slapped into my mitts and told to read at ‘whatever level you hold your book at’. Obee-kay-bee. I read the tiniest line (take that, Brunhilde!) with no problem. Didn’t we do this last year? Sigh. And to think, I’m PAYING for this to happen. Where’s the excitement, I ask you. Oh, that’s right. The excitement I save for the gynecologist.
‘Maybe you need a pair of single vision lenses for every day’ she intoned. Pardon me, Warden, but wasn’t that what I was wearing on my last visit? What was the point in shelling out obscene amounts of money for bifocals if they’re gonna sit on my head for the majority of my day or having to shell out even more for single vision which I still have hiding in my bathroom drawer!?
Does this make sense to anyone?
‘Welcome to middle age, my dear!’ she crowed.
Back up the Wrinkle Wagon a minute there, babe. Last I checked, the average life expectancy for a woman living in the U.S. was 86 so if my private school education was actually a sound investment for my parents’ pocketbook and paid off for me, that means ‘middle-age’ is really 43.
Middle age, my eye.
My Imperfect Life 
Actually, that means that “mid-life” is 43. I always figured that we became adults at 21. If you live to 86 that means adulthood lasts 65 years. We will say that each stage lasts ~22 years. So, you start middle age at 42-43 and it lasts until 64 or 65. Then you are old!! According to my grandmother, you are middle aged at 35!
Yeah well, my children already think I’m old. I remember being young and thinking 20 was like one foot in the grave.
I wear glasses for close up work …cant see a thing without them. But my visits to the eye dudette are never as funny as yours.
Thanks for reminding me I have to book in my bi-annual appointment.
I must be practicing to be a cranky senior citizen..the older I get, the more stuff gets through my verbal filter. My glasses are currently residing atop my head as I type this. Now, go book your appointment!