I'm A Moron

Like many people my age (oldsters), I'm forced to wear reading glasses.  Anymore, I can't read anything without them.  I used to try.. okay, sometimes I still do... reading a number out of the phone book sans visual accouterments.  Mostly I just get annoyed that I've wasted time trying because I end up needing the glasses after all.  I don't know why I still try this but I do...and yes, I do know the definition of insanity.  Sometimes it seems like if I hold the book at a certain angle in direct light, I can still make out the numbers I need.  So there I'll be holding the book in front of me, angled away from me, with my head tilted up, looking down my nose at the book...trying to decipher the blurry print.   It's kinda pathetic that I still feel the need to try, isn't it?

I used to have reading glasses everywhere.  Being a sucker for a good deal, or at least what seems like a good deal at the time, I've purchased several sets from TV shopping networks.  How I manage to lose them is a mystery...they're like socks...they just disappear.  Am I unknowingly putting them in places so I don't lose them?  Am I going to move a carton of ice cream in the freezer and find a pair of glasses that I don't remember putting there?  Who would put glasses in the freezer anyway?  Old people, that's who.  Why?  So they wouldn't get stolen of course.  Who would want to steal reading glasses anyway?  Oldster burglars?  Please God, don't let me find reading glasses in the freezer.

So far I've managed to avoid the dreaded "old lady chain" that holds the glasses around my neck, but I know it's coming.  The problem with my aged eyes is that I have to use the readers to see print, but I can't walk with them on.  Oh sure, I can leave them on the bridge of my nose and walk around with my head down looking over the top of the glasses but they always feel like they're going to slip off, and besides, it looks weird.  If I put them on top of my head they get stretched out.  I need a chainless solution.

Yesterday I had to take a packet of papers to a woman in another office.  I'll call her "J".  I know when I get there I may have to read something so I throw a pair of glasses in my jacket pocket. Always be prepared...that's my motto...I have many mottos...I get them from The Husband who has a motto for every occasion...his favorite is "A working woman's a happy woman"...technically I'm not sure this qualifies as a motto.  Anyway, back to my journey of delivering papers...J is on the other side of the building so I have to wind my way through aisles of cubicles, a maze of hallways, and locked doors that need a magnetic badge pressed against them to open. I like to call them magic keys...I know they're not really magic.

I'm thankful I had the foresight to put the glasses in my pocket since I had to try to actually see what J was showing me on the wad of papers I shoved in front of her.  After we talked about work, we started chatting about non work stuff...killin' time on the government dime.  While we're talking my glasses fell out of my pocket.

Me:  "Oh no, my high dollar reading glasses just fell under your chair".

J:  "Well I don't want to move 'cause I'm afraid I'll roll over them"...I think she thought I was serious about them being "high dollar"...which they aren't.

So I bend down and start looking around but can't see them.

J:  "Maybe they went under the drawers".

I look but the drawers sit flat on the ground.  I see a metal clip under her chair and start to think maybe that's what I heard fall.

J:  "Let me get out of the way so I don't roll over them" as she eases out of her chair with a move that would make any contortionist proud...and the chair doesn't move...I'm impressed.

We're both hunched over and can now see under her chair, and plainly, there's no glasses there.  I can't figure out how they could have bounced so far away when J turns to me and says:

"What's on your face?" as she busts up laughing.

Okay, so I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer...but really???? I'm wearing the glasses that I've been searching the floor for.  Yep, right there perched on the end of my nose.  I look at J who I've only recently met and who now, rightly so, thinks I'm a moron and start laughing.   There's no reasonable explanation for what just happened other than the fact that I'm now "officially" an old fart. I expect bright orange pin curls are just around the corner.

All the way back to my office I keep laughing.  Then I start to notice that strangers are looking at me as I walk along the halls laughing.  I'm sure I looked like a crazy person hearing voices in her head and laughing at what they were telling me.  People avoided me and got out of my way.  Nobody wanted to make eye contact with me and I could see some of them elbowing their partners and not so subtly nodding their head toward me.  "Watch out for the crazy lady" was written all over their faces...which started me thinking...

Next time the grocery store's crowded I should try looking at the food in my basket and laughing out loud, all by myself, as I push the cart toward the checkout stand and see if people move to another line to get away from the "crazy lady".  I wonder if it would work?  Never in a million years would I actually do this, but I really want to.  I know...it's the stoopidist thing.