Bespectacled, Bothered, and Bewildered

Listening to the eye doctor's spiel about how, as we age, the lenses in our eyes become less flexible, I had expected a moral along the lines of "You'll just have to deal with a little blur, Mr. Forty-Year-Old." Instead, he gave me a prescription for reading glasses.

You're allowed to mail order your own pair from an outside vendor, but when you let The Missouri Department of Corrections furnish your glasses, there's a choice of two frames styles: the Turbo Nerd 5000, or some creepy pinkish mock-tortoiseshell "unisex" number acquired secondhand from an opticians' supply clearinghouse that shuttered in 1981. Basic black seemed like the obvious choice.

It's been two weeks since I started wearing mine. It hasn't been the easiest adjustment. Harder to handle than janky optical inputs is having to put something on my face every time I pick up a book, magazine, tablet, pen, or pencil. I'm trying to treat it like a mindfulness exercise, similar to eating with deliberate slowness or showering with my eyes closed. Transferring them from the bridge of my nose to my forehead every time I look up still takes the greatest amount of effort. I'll get it eventually.

Of course, it doesn't help that the frame shape is completely wrong for my face. I'm not trying to make a fashion statement when I read — let alone when I read in prison — but these Turbo Nerd 5000s are so large that they hide my perfect eyebrows, which borders on unconscionable.