Bifocals Mature a Person

My ophtamologist, a stooped old cuss who looks like the poster child for bifocals, wags his head defiantly whenever I bring up the subject. He does not recommend bifocals. I figured he was just a quirky contrarian. Probably favors a delicious salty touch of glaucoma.

Finally, last time, I begged him. "I'm one of those phone guys. I look at my iPhone like 200 times per day. And each time, I have to push my glasses down my nose, or else rip them off my head, so I can see the screen. And I'm getting tired of it!" He sighed heavily, wrote the prescription, and wished me godspeed.

My Eyewear Professional handed me my new bifocals with an impish grin, and moved, for some reason, a couple of feet to the left. I put them on, and nearly projectile vomited. Suddenly it all made sense. She was avoiding my spew. And my opthamologist was hoping to spare me this pain. And, as I rapidly surveyed my mental snapshots of old people either 1. never changing the angle of their rigid head, or else 2. looking really really nauseous, suddenly all human life made sense.

A significant chunk of the population views the world through the wavy, trippy lensing of a bad 1960s acid movie. I'd just stepped into this new reality, myself...as my optical shop transformed into a scene from "I Love You Alice B Toklas".

"Give it two weeks," chirped my Eyewear Professional, remaining prudently outside my range.

I chose not to bring these monsters to Portugal. But I'm back (more catch-up reporting to follow, though), and am "giving them a spin" as they say (and, boy, is it all spinning). But I think I've devised the proper mental framing. Here it is:

The Good world is high. Don't look down at the Bad world. Looking down is only for your phone. If there's no phone, don't look down.

That's the mantra, and it's something I super look forward to following for a bunch more decades: If there's no phone, don't look down. Easy peasy!

Following that mantra, I never change the angle of my rigid head. Like...ever. So, at long last, I'm acting my age. Finally, I have matured. Thanks, bifocals!