I see

A couple of weeks ago I went to the eye doctor because the glasses I gotten in Halifax (well, Dartmouth, actually) just weren't quite cutting it anymore. I complained to the doc that it had only been a year and a half or so since I got my last glasses, and he said that was very normal at my age. That the next glasses would probably only last about the same amount of time. But the next ones after that...those should last eight to ten years. I guess middle age is a bit like childhood...a change-filled transition period to the next phase.

So I leave the doctor's office clutching my new prescription. Two, actually. One for computer glasses and one for reading and everything else...bifocals. Last time I got glasses, I got two pairs also. But the one pair were actually TRIfocals, I was told. I didn't like them very much, and rarely wore them unless I really had too.

It's taken me two weeks to actually go find a place to fill the prescriptions. I didn't fall in love with any of the lenses, but the lady in the store helped me find two pairs I liked alright. The computer glasses are even a little funky, and they started to grow on me before I even left the store. Black plastic frames with a thin white "pinstripe" that keeps them from looking stodgy. The other pair are pretty plain, but for walking around or just reading they'll be perfect.

I have to call myself Patti Six-Eyes these days, because I can't do without two pairs of glasses on my person at all times. If I put them down, I forget them places and those chains for around your neck are too awkward, so I wear one pair on my face and the other on my head. Always handy. When I told the Patti Six-Eyes joke to the eye doctor, he roared with laughter. It really suprised me that no-one had ever come up with that expression before! Well, at least in neither of our experience.

The shocker, of course, was finding out much these two new pairs of glasses are going to cost me. Over $900 when all is said and done. SOOOO glad there's no tax on eyeglasses!! So I figured it would be easier to pay in two big chunks rather than a small one and a huge one. I still won't be able to afford to pick up both pairs at the same time. I'll have to do one pair in two weeks and the other pair two weeks after that.

In two years, when I get my next glasses, I think I'll take the frames I'm wearing right now and get them to re-use them...assuming they won't be hopelessly out of style by then!