Foresight, Insight, Hindsight

I got up from the computer the other day wearing the wrong glasses and stubbed my toe into a chair leg. Of course I let out a grumbly series of choice words that sent the cats heading for high ground. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to walk with the wrong glasses on, and I’m sure it wont be the last. I have glasses for every kind of activity I might partake in. Glasses for the computer, glasses for reading, for TV, for driving, you name it- I have glasses for it. I even have pooping glasses. No, not to poop with, but to read the phone while I do my business. No sense just sitting around wasting time while you’re making waste. I used to have perfect vision when I was a young lad. I can remember getting my eyes checked in elementary school way back when. The eye lady said I had 10/10 vision. I thought that meant I could tell the difference between a dime and two nickels, I guess? My friend Timmy had 20/20 vision which was worth more than mine, or at least that’s what we thought. My eyesight was always perfect till I got to be about age forty. That’s when it happened- my arms got too short! That’s what my Dad called it. He got his first glasses around the age of forty. Your eyes can’t see close up anymore, so you hold whatever you’re reading farther away so you can see it better, until it gets so far away that you need binoculars to read it! This is when you go to the eye Doc, because your arms are too short and the eye Doc knows a trick to make your arms longer- it’s called- Glasses! Eye Docs have funny names like- Optometrist and Ophthalmologist-I’ll just use ‘eye Doc’ because it’s easier to spell. The longer these names get means they can charge more for their services. That being said, you should try to avoid the- Ophthalmootorhinolaryngologist or you’ll be paying till the cows come home, if you have any cows left by that time! The eye Docs also use that big old word I just used above on their eye charts that they have you try to read. ‘Please read the top line of the eye chart Mr. Smith’. Mr Smith looks at the eye chart and says ‘I can’t read that word.’ ‘Oh’ says the eye Doc, ‘You must need glasses!’ ‘Well, I didn’t come here for a spelling test’ Smith rebuts! When I turned forty, I only needed glasses for reading. Yet, as time passes by the eyes get needier and demand more attention, and money, to stay in peak operating condition. This is when you may end up with ‘bifocal’ glasses. These glasses have two lenses in each of the lenses so you can walk and chew gum at the same time. But don’t try to walk and read and chew gum at the same time though, or you may swallow your gum. And if you keep swallowing you gum, you know what that means- a visit to a different Doc- a proctologist! Most bifocals have lines on the lenses so you can tell where the extra lens begins. The bifocal lens is on the lower section of the main lens and is usually for close up vision like reading. There are also bifocals with no lines called ‘progressive’ lenses. I tried a pair of these progressive lens glasses once when I was working as a carpenter some time ago. Let’s just say, I don’t recommend them when you work on a roof, because these lenses go from far sighted to near sighted in an instant and you may end up on the ground much sooner that you want. The last time I went to the eye Doc he tried to talk me into trifocals- three lenses in each lens! I wouldn’t know if I was coming or going! I told him, ‘I know what, how about some spider glasses with 8 or 10 eyes!’ Needless to say, he was not impressed, but I’ll bet in the back of his mind he was thinking, ‘Man, I could really make some loot with spider glasses!$ Well until I can get some spider glasses, I’ll just keep fumbling with my 17 pairs of glasses. I’m sure it wont be long and we’ll have eyes in the backs of our heads so we can see where we’ve come and see where we’re going at the same time. And hopefully not get the two directions mixed up!