Age before vanity

It’s only been a year since I last changed the prescription in my glasses. This was after five-or-so years of plunking down my co-pay and walking out with nary another nickle going to the ophthamologist or his evil minion the optician.

This time, the news wasn’t good. All the doctor’s talk, his words and his body language, was leading to the inevitable conclusion: The P word.

Progressive lenses.

He assured me that this was a better solution than – heaven forbid – bifocals, the glasses with the line of demarcation separating your young self from your old self. The progressive lenses completes my Picture of Dorian Gray where in my mind’s eye I’m still 18 and can’t sit still, while in real life I’m sitting still and can’t get up. It’s the time when glasses perch at the end of your nose and your arms telescope back and forth until the optimal distance between reading material and clear vision is achieved.

My heart sank. I warned him not to tell me, but you know doctors, he had to come out and say it. So I slugged him. I slugged him with a verbal barrage of reasons why I was still too young to wear progressive lens, knowing all too well that the exam he had just performed clearly showed that it was time to give in.

I will have some time to make the transition since insurance won’t cover a lens change for another month (Hello, universal heath care?).

I’ll probably toast the end of my youth this weekend. Raise a glass of Geritol for me, too.