When Old Eyes Are Straining

It began in my late forties.  I started noticing that book publishers were putting out books with much smaller type.  Then product manufacturers began doing it with labels.  The publishers of sheet music soon followed.

For some unexplained reason, they all began using smaller print.

It was like some vast conspiracy was overtaking this country.  All of a sudden, I could not read a newspaper unless my husband held it up across the table.  Menus looked like they were all written in very tiny Chinese characters.  And the instructions on prescription bottles could not be deciphered unless you were a flea.

That is unless you put on a pair of glasses.

Seemingly overnight, I had old eyes.

One of my favorite humor writers, Dave Barry, described when he first noticed the phenomenon in his book Dave Barry Turns 50:

At first, I thought it had nothing to do with me--that for some reason, possibly to save ink, the restaurants had started printing their menus in letters the height of bacteria; all I could see was little blurs.  But for some reason, everybody else seemed to be able to read the menus.  Not wishing to draw attention to myself, I started ordering my food by simply pointing to a likely looking blur.
 
ME (pointing to a blur): I'll have this.
WAITER: You'll have "We Do Not Accept Personal Checks"?
ME: Make that medium rare.

I had worn glasses for years when I was working on my laptop.  But all of a sudden, I had to wear them to read the clock on the wall.  So I bought a pair of those reading glasses they sell in drug stores to keep in the bedroom where I do a lot of reading so that the prescription pair could remain in my home office. And the packaging on those glasses may have well included the words "Welcome to Old Age." In a very large, bold typeface.

 Then I needed a stronger prescription pair following my next eye exam. I now have a pair of reading glasses in almost every room of the house since I can no longer thread a needle without the aid of a microscope.

There is a commercial where a couple is in a restaurant trying to order off a menu.  They tell the waiter they are not ready because they forgot their reading glasses and cannot read the selections.  The waiter then proceeds to bring them menus the size of a mini-fridge. I think all restaurants should have these available.

Either that or they should keep a basket of magnifying glasses in the center of the table for their middle-aged patrons with their ever-shrinking eyesight.  Or they can go the route of book publishers, who now offer a vast selection of large-print books, and offer us large print menus.  Otherwise, we can just ask the patrons on the other side of the restaurant to hold up the menu so that we can read it.

Rather than lament my aging eyes, I try to remember all the awesome movie and literary characters who wear glasses.  Harry Potter wears them.  Andrew Garfield wore them when he played Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-man, and he got to swing around a city on webs and use his Spidey-sense to catch bad guys.  Harold Ramis in Ghostbusters and Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting were both bespeckled when they played professors, so wearing glasses obviously means you are smart.  Then again, Peter Griffin in Family Guy also wears glasses.  So much for that argument.

I choose to believe that wearing reading glasses makes me look intelligent, distinguished and important.  After all, Superman wore them when he was Clark Kent.  But as Dave Barry points out, "He takes off his glasses and becomes Superman; you put on your reading glasses and become...Old Person"