No. I will not get a neckchain.

I hate glasses.

To be fair to the whole concept of optical devices, I really do appreciate them in theory. But it was easier to be impressed with the instantaneous improvement afforded by a pair of mild nearsightedness correctors, which had the magical property of instantly dispensing with the nuisance of myopia at the slight trade-off of a frame on your nose.

This was all that I needed, and only in certain situations at that, until a couple or so years ago. But now I believe that I’m in need of some sort of specs-on-a-hinge device, where two pairs of glasses, joined at the earpieces, would flip to the top of my head, or down to eye-level, depending on whether I intended to see the wipe-off board in Japanese class (that’s where they used to have chalk boards--up front,) attempt to differentiate “hi” from “pi” in hiragana in my textbook, or read the impossibly, ridiculously miniature lettering on the back of a shampoo bottle at the grocery store. There would be three options: distance glasses, no glasses, and 1.50+ magnifying.

I understand that it is the purpose of “progressive” lenses to address all of these conditions in the convenient package of a single (or rather 2 single) lenses the size of dried prunes.

I got a pair maybe 1.5 years ago? But see...I can’t read out of the bottom part like I’m supposed to. If I hold the book at a distance of about arm length, then yes...I can read with the glasses. But I’m better off without them entirely. And when it comes to that tiny tiny tiny stuff, it’s magnifiers or forget it. So I don’t know (and please help me if you know the answer to this question) whether the problem might be that my prescription of 1.5 years ago, which apparently wasn’t exactly up to date as of January this year, is maybe just not strong enough.

The question is whether it’s worth sinking a few more hundred dollars into an updated prescription, or whether I should just learn to love pushing glasses up and down my face in class, and fishing out the magnifiers in the grocery store.

Because the real nasty thing about presbyopia is it just doesn’t correct with the delightful alacrity of myopia. It’s kind of picky.

Anyway, I think that if I had any gift for synthetic parts manufacturing, then Lifetime Guarantee Flexilenses® which you get implanted could be a really big seller. In the meantime...(crap)...I will be that dork handing objects to my children and saying “what does this say please?” And they will tell me. But Gabe will pronounce it weird.