Eyes Down the Drain

Reading glasses are now stationed in essential areas of the house...


December 4, 2006

My eagle eyes are failing. I can still read a street sign from a far, but in a nice restaurant with candles flickering, I can’t read a damn thing on the menu. It’s as if there’s a font conspiracy, a madcap scheme to shrink every written word on the planet so that I won’t be able to read it.

Of course reading glasses would solve the situation. I bought a pair of drugstore glasses for fifteen bucks last year. They work great, but I need to have them in reach when I want to read something, which means, I can’t go anywhere without them -- as if that’s going to happen.

I should buy ten pairs and keep one in each room. A pair would come in handy when I'm on the toilet.

I’ve worked on the computer a lot lately. My eyes felt tired, weak, and blurry. I went to the eye doctor.

“We haven’t seen you since 2002,” the doctor says, shaking his head. “I need to see you every year.”

“My insurance is crap,” I tell him. “I’m self-employed, money’s tight.”

He frowns. “This is just like an annual physical, you can’t afford not to.”

Hmm, I think.

He proceeds to give me a thorough exam. I don’t doubt his abilities, but his bedside manner is brusque. He’s harried and speaks as if on auto-pilot.

“You’ve done this a few times,” I say.

He smirks.

But he does test my drugstore glasses. “They aren’t pretty,” I say, “but they do the trick.”

No response.

At the end of the exam, he scribbles me a prescription. “You can see the guy out front for the glasses.”

It’s a posh shop filled with designer spectacles at high prices. I’d need several thousand dollars to station glasses throughout my house.

I walk back to the doc’s office. “Sorry,” I say. “What’s the difference between these glasses and yours?”

“Minimal,” he replies.

I smile, turn, and walk straight out to the parking lot. I head over to the drugstore.

I’ve spoken to a couple of doctors since my appointment and they said at my age if I’m not having eye trouble, there’s no need for an annual pilgrimage to the eye doctor; especially if I get a yearly physical.

When a doctor tells you something, it’s tough not to believe it. How’s a civilian to know what’s really necessary?

The eye doctor says come every year. The dentist wants to see me every six months. The general practioner says at my age I have to come yearly for a check-up. The apple industry association still claims eating one everyday keeps the damn doctor away. How does that factor into all of this?

And yet my insurance doesn’t cover eye or teeth; it makes no contributions for fruits or vegetables either; it does, however, cover 25% of an annual physical, but only once every two years.

It's a struggle to navigate our healthcare system, but at least I can read the fine print of the my insurance policy with these handy fifteen-dollar-drugstore glasses…