Happy Friday, everyone! I’m proud to announce this week I’ve assumed my place in a marginalized group—the visually impaired. I would ask in this time of reflection that you all respect my lived experiences and affirm my new identity. Otherwise you’re all ableist bigots.

I knew I needed some kind of glasses back in December when we took the kids to Vermont. When you’re navigating at night based on vibrations from your Apple Watch because you can’t read the road signs, you really need to get your shit looked at. So I did.

Funny thing is, this isn’t my first rodeo. I was a member of the four-eyes club back in high school and undergrad. Around 25 years ago, I had LASIK surgery to correct my eyesight. It was a wild experience, having an optometry professional cutting into my eyeballs with lasers to make it so I wouldn’t have to wear glasses or contacts ever again.

Nobody told me the procedure had an expiration date. Seriously, with all the time I spent in recovery and the loss of a favorite jacket due to an incident with cat piss, if I’d known I’d be back in this position years later, I might have said “fuck it” and kept the specs.

The person affected most by all of this was my wife, who was now in a position where she’d be staring at me wearing glasses every day when I haven’t since we met. So we agreed she’d need to come with me to pick said glasses out.

What I didn’t know was that the optometrist I’d be seeing was a sorority sister of my wife’s. Trust me, it can get very uncomfortable when a person that laughs with delight at getting to examine diseased retinas tells you an eye exam can go “the easy way or the hard way.” I’m still not sure what she meant by that, but Dr. Sara told me she was just joking. I think.

Anyway, eye exams are now pretty easy and higher tech than when I remembered getting one last. There’s still the vision charts and the big lens machine, but now they have video monitors that can detect just how shitty your eyesight is without all that “air puff” nonsense of old.

Turned out, I needed Progression lenses. That’s the new term for “bifocals” without the annoying line in the middle or making you feel old. A millennial had to come up with this term—“progression lenses”—and I love them for it. Keeps me feeling somewhat young still.

Good job, millennials. I’ll probably only say that once, so someone may want to bookmark this post for future reference when I get grumpy again. Like next week.

Countless options await new eyeglass purchasers as well. Since I basically can’t see shit without these things, we opted for the “Transitions” lenses so they act like sunglasses for me now. The “extra active” ones I’ve got now meant my six-year-old son immediately inherited all of my old sunglasses.

He’s settled on a pair I got from a gas station for $5 as his favorite. There’s Oakleys in there. I guess taste isn’t really something one acquires genetically, but I still love my little guy regardless.

The glasses came with a “free hard case.” By “hard case” they meant a triangular looking contraption that looks like it would smash if I closed my fist around it. I enlisted my son’s help in finding a proper hard case for eyeglasses. He picked one with a 1960s depiction of Batman.

On second thought, maybe the kid does have taste after all.

Without question the worst part of the eye exam was when they dilated my pupils. I already saw the world through Mr. Magoo’s eyes. I didn’t need the problem exaggerated. Yet here I was, grateful for my wife’s accompaniment so she could make the 15 minute drive back and actually read all the road signs getting home without causing a wreck.

It was around the time they dilated my pupils I was sent into the “optical store” section of the place to pick out frames. Quite a fun experience when you’re seeing the world through a blurry haze. Luckily, my wife did a good job selecting something tasteful. She never half-asses anything.

With frames picked and lenses selected, we plunked down what was roughly half the cost of my cell phone for what I’d use to see for the foreseeable future. I was then told to wait for a text message telling me when my new specs would be ready.

“When do you think that would be?” I asked.

“We guarantee two weeks usually, but with supply chain issues and all it may be a little longer than that.”

And indeed it was. I stumbled around the world like a blind man until January 31, when I called the optometrist’s outright and found out the glasses had come in that very day. I put the kids in the car that afternoon and we made the drive so I could finally see the world in a clearer light.

What a sweet drive it was back home. I could finally read street signs again. On getting home I noticed smudges from fingerprints on the TV screen my children had left there from the last time an “Ice Age” movie played. I even got a good look at my wife again, and she’s totally hotter in clear vision than without.

But back to the victim status. It’s weird, being a white guy and part of a marginalized class. I’ve not really been able to feel much of the weight of oppression from having to wear corrective lenses other than going inside my kids’ school. With a mask requirement in place the damn lenses fog up every time I breathe so it gets a little annoying there.

I just don’t have it in my heart to run around telling my kids’ teachers to respect my oppressed status and treat me accordingly. Maybe next week I’ll get there. It’s one day at a time when you’re part of a marginalized class.

Maybe it would be better if I started practicing tonight. When I go have dinner with friends later I’ll see if there’s any commentary on my appearance. Maybe then I’ll get to take offense at something someone said or did and demand they get removed from Spotify unless they validate me.

I hear that’s all the rage now.

Anyway, I’m heading into the weekend seeing clearly that I need one thing more than anything else: a good nap. So I’m off to take one now! Here’s to a better weekend, and no matter how bad your week went, at least you weren’t stumbling around like Mr. Magoo for part of it!

Unless that’s your thing. As I often say here, it’s not my place to judge.

We’ll see you next week, everybody!