Aging Gracefully

Busy, busy weekend. The chorus had its concert this weekend, to wild audience acclaim. From my side of the footlights, while the chorus and the concerts seem to feed me in an inexplicable way, the concerts really were non-events.

And work is just too heinous to write about. I'm beginning to fear that I might for the first time be experiencing the bubbling of genuine hate and it's not pretty.

But the REAL event of the weekend was my eye examination. I haven't gotten new glasses in four or five years, and my most recent pair disappeared on the CTA about three years ago, and the most recent pair after that were about seven years old, so I've been limping through with glasses that were nearly ten years old.

I don't wear glasses very often; only when I'm working long stretches on the computer or reading Russian literature. To the tell the truth, it was vanity that sent me for a new pair more than anything else. The pair I was wearing were so outdated they are starting to come back into style.

The examination was uneventful, except that whatever it is they try to pierce your eyeballs with couldn't get anywhere near my eye. The doctor looked at my paperwork and then marvelled that at my age; I could get away with a single-vision prescription. However, he warned me that I would likely wake up one morning and not be able to see clearly. He said it will seem to happen over night, but based on his examination he didn't expect that to happen any time soon.

I was congratulating myself on the obvious evidence of my immortality as I was completing the order for my new glasses when the owner of the shop happened to look at my prescription. He snatched up the paperwork and marched back to my doctor, demanding to know why he hadn't written a prescription for bifocals. My doctor explained that I didn't need them. Mind you, it's a small shop and I'm overhearing every word. Then the mortal blow came.

"But he's too OLD for single-vision glasses."

While my Little-Mary-Sunshine mind tried to turn that statement into a positive -- my preserved youth even baffles health-care professionals is how I was composing it -- the real issue came out.

"You could have charged him another hundred dollars for bifocals."

At this point I decided that the glass was not only half empty, but I was getting ready to fling the remaining contents into someone's face. But ever the discrete individual, I simply asked the shop girl processing my order to slip into the back room and explain that I could hear every word and if they wanted to keep the sale they'd keep their mouths shut.

After I left the shop, glasses in hand I did some shopping. Then the final two concerts, which required me to do some intricate make-up work. I pulled out my new glasses and for the first time in I don't know how long I could see clearly. I literally gasped.

"I can see clearly now..."