For the last few years, I've been suffering from a serious medical condition that was causing the shortening of my arms. It wasn't too bad, but I noticed it most when trying to read fine print, which was getting harder and harder. I told Lissa about it . She just snorted and told me I was getting old and needed bifocals.
I told her there was nothing wrong with my eyes, that it was all in my arms and I tried to prove it to her by putting my arms around her.
"See," I said," my arms don't reach all the way around you anymore."
For some reason, that didn't go over very well. I guess some people just can't handle being wrong. She started muttering something about pointing out which of my appendages were really shrinking, and while I certainly have no idea what she was talking about, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and went to sleep on the couch.
Early the next morning I decided to prove my point in a different way. I went down to the laundry room to grab a couple of my long sleeved shirts to show her that the sleeves were too short. What I discovered when I put them on was truly shocking. Not only had my arms shrunk, but my shirts had been shrinking as well, and at exactly the same rate as my arms!
What were the odds?
I considered sharing this new observation with her, but then the truth hit me. That lovely woman was deliberately shrinking my shirts so I wouldn't feel bad about it!
Like the old Geritol Commercial used to say, "My wife! I think I'll keep her."
Now that I understood why she was so upset I went and woke her up to tell her everything I'd discovered and how happy I was that she had gone to so much trouble to keep me from suffering the consequences of my affliction.
I'm sure you're surprise is as great as mine was when she proceeded to scream at me using words that I didn't know she knew, words I hadn't heard since I was in the Navy. The various acts she invited me to perform on myself were not only immoral, but illegal in several states, and, at least in one case, physically impossible without extensive surgery and years of training.
I think it would have gone better if I'd brought her coffee first. I mentioned something about her being grumpy before breakfast, and the next thing I remember was waking up in the emergency room. I only needed 35 stitches and while I was there, the doctor told me that there was no such thing as a disease that caused the arms to get shorter, and that probably needed bifocals.
I looked over at my loving wife and asked her why she had gone to all the trouble of shrinking my shirts if she had that all I needed were some new glasses..
She just stared at me, then asked the doctor if he was sure the anesthesia had completely worn off. He said that it had, and for some reason he had a sad look on his face. Lissa started making very strange noises in the back of her throat like steam escaping from a pressure cooker and eventually left the room muttering about there being too many witnesses or something like that. That's when the doctor told me that he'd like to keep me in the hospital overnight, "just to be safe," he said. I asked if there was anything seriously wrong with me and he said "Only if you go home tonight."
Anyway, the next morning, Lissa picked me up and we went to the eye doctor and sure enough, he said I needed bifocals. I was afraid I'd have to wear those old man looking glasses, or the librarian spectacles, but there's this thing called progressive bifocals and it's really cool. Basically, they grind different areas of the lens a little bit differently which gives each portion of the lens a different amount of correction. The part right in front of your eye is built for distance and the part right below your eye is built for closeup. One of the consequences of the variable grinding is that in order to keep the glass smooth and line free, the area right above your eye and to either side is a little bit weaker than it should be, which reduces your peripheral vision by a bit.
When I tried them on, I really liked them. My eye doctor had prescribed my contacts in monocular vision for the last year, and while it worked ok, it was a little bit annoying because nothing was ever in clear focus. BUt with my new glasses, all I have to do is look through the right part of the lens, and everything can be sharply focused and crystal clear.
Lissa asked me if the glasses helped me see better, and I said, "They certainly do! I can see every little line around your eyes!"
Fortunately, they were having a special two for the price of one sale.
Old Eyes; New Glasses
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