Reading Glasses

There comes a time in a (wo)man's life when it is OK to say 'I can't read those silly little letters in the newspaper anymore dear' and then being sent to the optometrist to get your eyesight (re)measured. Same answer from them to all of us passed the age of 40-50: YOU are in NEED of reading glasses...

Same thing happened to me. I am a MINUS-type as far as spectacles are concerned. I see nothing far away but very much nearby. This is beautiful and guarantees perfect eyesight the longer you live. One handicap though: it won't happen overnight and it is very discriminatory as lengths of vision are concerned. Close reading (in dutch we say 'dichten', joke) is the first sign of progress, while the horizon view stays behind in terms of performance. In short: I fell for the optometrist's suggestion and went home with socalled Varilux glasses that offer the best of both worlds, i.e. read the newspaper: look through the lower part of the glasses, read road signs far ahead: look through the upper part of the glasses. Only problem, as I experienced, was computer screens. Not far away, but instead of horizontal a computer screen reads vertical on the table, which meant that the only way to read the screen is to tilt your head backwards in order to read (closeby means lower part of glasses, get it?).

A few years ago I concluded this solution made me (and my neck) unhappy. So I went back to the optometrist and asked for a set of computer glasses, where down (closeby) was to be up and up (faraway) was to be down istead of the normal (reversed) set. Stupid as they are the optometrist first says NO, because he does not understand. After long and painful discussions it finally became clear to the person involved that what I wanted was actually possible. So I ordered my reversed set of glasses. And upon delivery I was very happy, reading my screen as if I was still 20...

But times pass and after a few years (we are at the 'now' BTW) I noticed that I did not wear my computer glasses any longer. In short I went back to glasses I could use when 'faraway' was the needed view and looked 'over' my glasses whenever 'close reading' was required.

Now what.

New idea: After a tennis excercise with a friend who wore clip-on sunglasses, I came to realise that clip-on reading glasses was my thing. Back to the optometrist asking how soon he could deliver. Never, was his dull answer, what you are asking I cannot sell you.

Google is your friend so in 30 minutes (OK, slow, sure...) I found what I wanted: clip-on reading glasses perfectly fitting my eyesight handicap. 19 US$, or 13 € (ex shipping) from a US company (so there IS hope for the good old US of A). This is how they look:

Simple uh? Right! But then comes the difficult part: dutch service potential. Again, back to the optometrist: 'Hello, here I am again, and I got a surprise for you. What you could not deliver, I ordered on the internet and lo and behold.... a clip-on set of reading glasses....'

'But they are much larger than the glasses you wear now', the man said. 'Sure', I answered, 'that's why I came back to you because, of course, you can fit the clip-on to the size of my glasses'.

'Alas', the man said. 'Your clip-on is made out of polycarbonate and that will splinter if I try to saw it...' And he was adamant, I can tell you. No history of being a client for 30+ years could change his mind. No offer from me that it would be my risk and my risk alone if he would only try, could persuade him. I was sent away, into the rain (not his fault I must stress)...

But I have my tools I thought. I can do what he refuses to do. I use my Dremel miniature drill/saw/polish/grind/whatever-thing and I will fix this. You'll here about my ventures at this later... (I tell this story beforehand, because if splinters will make me blind you would not have known the cause and the story behind it, because I cannot type blind(folded)).