I was pretty smug for two years after my cataract surgery. No glasses needed… ever. I could read ingredients on vitamin bottles, see veins on leaves, wave to hikers up in the Catalina Mountains from my office window here in the foothills. My doctor advised I might eventually need “cheaters.” I was in minor denial when I started doing the arm stretch to get a better focus. I have long arms, but even they failed me.
I bought one pair of cheaters — lowest magnification. Then another to keep in my handbag. Then a third pair for bedside reading. And a fourth for the kitchen.
Okay, now I’m back to having specific reading-for-small-print glasses for each room. So how come they tend to hang out in my bathroom? 
And where is the other pair? When my sweetheart and I start house roaming to locate a missing pair, I realize it’s not worth the energy to get upset.
Him: Why can’t you just use another pair to read the recipe?
Me: (with exaggerated slow speech signaling false patience with someone who just doesn’t understand) Because they belong in the kitchen.
I have to laugh and thank those clever folks who know exactly what happens in homes where folks have aging eyes.
Ethel Lee-Miller blogs regularly about people, the power of words, and her writing life. She’s retired from professional writing gigs after 30 years of teaching, coaching, editing, and gathering writers to publicly share their work. She is the author of Thinking of Miller Place, and Seedlings, Stories of Relationships. These days, she writes to inspire, to connect with folks, and for the pure enjoyment of it. Ethel enjoys sharing stories at Odyssey Storytelling, Artists Standing Strong Together, and anywhere there’s a mic or a Zoom room.
