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Focal, that is.
Suffice to say, you’re favorite blogger on the whole worldwide web has pretty bad vision.
It all started in 1978 (when I’m sure a lot of problems started) when a less than ceremonial trip to the eye doctor rendered me far sighted and in possession of a lazy eye (or two).
Back then, they used to dilate your pupils relentlessly during an exam. By the time the doctor said you needed ocular assistance, you still couldn’t see well enough to determine if the frames you selected were ugly or not. Even then, it was the 70’s. Anyone who was around at the time should know that everything was ugly back then, and would stay that way for another few years.
Over the years, the vision hasn’t gotten that much better. An eventual move to contacts helped a little. Otherwise, my perception of certain things has been a little off kilter. Literally and metaphorically, of course.
Quick show of hands. Does anyone here remember those cool computer generated posters which were popular about 20 years ago? These were the ones where you had to look at them and kind of not look at them to see the hidden three dimensional picture in them.
I hated those things.
Care to guess why?
Because my visual affliction which is the culmination of one eye perceiving things at a higher rate of speed than the other one keeps the hidden image from being processed by my beloved gray matter into an image some geek dreamed up with his new CAD-CAM program on a nitro-infused Commodore 64.
None the less, an eye doctor told me about 20 years ago that by the time I hit 33 I would need bifocals. I don’t remember my exact response, but I’m pretty sure it can be compared to a pile of something a bull leaves out in the pasture on occasion.
Truth be told, I think I was about 40 when the moment of truth came. The funny thing was that I didn’t actually know about it until a year later when my eye doctor (a different one than the one I swore at) let me in on the secret.
Imagine the combination of disgust and arrogance I felt at the same time when I was let in on the secret that he had put me into multi-focal lenses the previous year. Sure, I hated being there, but I beat the previous doctor’s guesstimate by about seven years.
Here we are a few years later and my vision isn’t getting better.
It probably doesn’t help that I stare at a couple of monitors in Cubeville everyday. Nor does it help to come home and jump on the laptop or my iPhone to weave daily dispatches to the web.
Today, ladies and gentlemen, things come to a head.
As long as I’ve needed bifocals, I’ve remained in contacts. At the same time, my current pair of glasses date back to 1999 and the prescription in them is pretty darn old. Pre-bifocal old to be exact. Even though I continue to wear contacts, sometimes my eyeballs just need a rest. Case in point, the corneal edema I suffered last year which produced that evil persona in me named Left Eye Squinty came as a result of wearing my contacts for too long on a regular basis.
So in order to avoid the re-emergence of that pop eyed bastard, I’ve ordered a pair of glasses to wear a couple of days out of the week. This morning, after I go to the DMV to renew my drivers license and right before I venture out to watch a film featuring the lovely and talented Scarlett Johansson in skin tight attire and loaded for bear (or bare), I will pick up my new pair of bifocal glasses.
Gee, I can’t wait.
