There’s no other way to say it so I’m just gonna say it. I got glasses. Again. I had glasses for the first 25 years of my life. Then I got Lasik and got rid of the glasses and now I’m back to glasses.
Truth be told, I’ve probably needed em for the past decade but I kept putting it off. I probably didn’t want to admit that I needed them again much like I don’t want to admit that other things in my life aren’t working the way they’re supposed to. My back doesn’t work very well anymore. My right big toe doesn’t work. My thing still works but it’s cranky. Like an old car, it sometimes needs a running start before it fully shifts into gear but once you get it on the highway it feels pretty safe and secure. Kinda like the Biden administration.
Picking out a pair of glasses at age 53 is pretty much an existential crisis. What do I want the new frames to say about me? Who even am I now? Am I an intellectual? A straight up nerd? A dumb jock? Liberal or conservative? Gay or straight? Sexy or an after-thought? Ready to party or in bed by 10? These are the thoughts that raced through my mind as I tried on pair after pair after pair.
Nothing felt right. The round, circular, professorial frames made my nose look too big and applied immediate pressure on my face to say something smarter than, ‘I like the Raiders -3 this weekend.’ It’s crazy how circular frames can make one feel like one should immediately release a statement about inflation and where prices are headed.
Colors are a whole other thing. Pick a bright color and you’re trying too hard. Pick a neutral color and you have nothing to say that’s worth listening to.
The person helping me pick out a frame was nice but she didn’t really know me. There should absolutely be a glasses store where you fill out a detailed questionnaire about your personality including when you lost your virginity, what drugs you’ve tried, how many Depeche Mode concerts you’ve attended, your favorite baseball team, whether you prefer angel hair or linguini, The Wire or Breaking Bad, and then, after all that is input, you get a 3-D model print out of the perfect glasses for you.
Short of that, I went with the simple, clear, squarish frames. They’re progressives which means the lenses have three separate prescriptions for the three stages of life you’re headed towards. Fuzzy as fuck. Semi-blind. And Blind as a bat. Typing these words right now is giving me a severe headache because my brain is unwilling to accept these new living conditions. Still, I hope eventually my eyes will adjust and I’ll begin to see things more clearly. And that should lead to making better gambling decisions.
If nothing else, Gina seems to like em and they’re good for driving at night. I guess that’s all that matters.
One response to “Will New Glasses Make Me A Better Gambler?”
When those break, I’m pretty sure you can get a secondhand pair from a certain 1980s Laker PF. They are much more your style.