Old Coot can see clearly now. Tioga County Courier Article (06/23/2021)

 

The Old Coot solves a problem.

By Merlin Lessler

 I have NO glasses! I’m squinting as I write this, too lazy (or stubborn) to get up and go hunting for one of the six pairs I’ve strategically placed, so I’ll never be without. Not to mention another half-dozen pairs on standby, in a drawer in the kitchen. All of them are the same - 2.00 power, cheap, reading glasses.

 Six pairs scattered around the house so I’ll never be without, yet much of the time I’m glassesless (a word of my own invention, by necessity). It happens because I take the ones I’m using on a trip – like when I get up from my office chair to go to the garage to do something that suddenly pops into my head. (Because I have the, “Got to do it now or I’ll forget syndrome”) I have a pair in the garage, but since I’m carrying a pair on the top of my head, I don’t use the “garage” glasses. 

 Next stop, the kitchen. I set the office glasses down next to the kitchen glasses. Later on, when I go to back to the office, plop down and fumble for glasses on the desk; they aren’t there. Which is why I’m squinting as I write this. My normal scribbles are bad enough. Without glasses, they are completely illegible. 

 Eventually, every stopping place in the house (or car), will be void of glasses. I’ve taken them someplace and set them down without thinking – on the washing machine – in a coat pocket now hanging in the closet. Or worse, sitting atop my head, unbeknownst to me. Six pairs will be classified MIA, forcing me to bring in the reserves.

 But, the end of this dilemma is at hand. I bought a string necklace thing that I’ve attached to my favorite pair. Now, I have glasses no matter where I go in the house. I swore I’d never use one of these eyeglass necklace things; thinking they were for old fogies. Well, if the shoe fits, wear it. I’m an old foggy, but now, one who can read no matter where I am in the house. I won’t wear it in public; I have an image to maintain, tattered as it is.

 I have a similar problem with pandemic masks. I keep one in the car to use in public places. Quite often I’ll mistakenly bring it into the house. The next time I go out, I won’t have a mask; it isn’t in the car like it should be. I’m mask-less, and thus denied entry to some of the places I wanted to stop at. Fortunately, the mask mandate is fading away and I won’t be tempted to buy, and then wear, a mask necklace, similar to my glasses one. I have eleven pairs of glasses for sale, now that my eyeglass necklace is in the game.  Check the want ads in your local paper. They are cheap and going fast.

 Comments, complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com