#81 3-2-1 Contacts!

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My life is a blur these days.

Really.

I’ve traded my reliable (but stodgy) glasses for less reliable (but far more exciting) contacts. Like a lot of guys who try to trade up, I think I may have simply swapped one set of problems for another.

I slipped solidly into geekdom at the age of ten when I was fitted with a pair of black-rimmed glasses that had all of the aesthetic appeal and elegance of a spork at formal dinner party. Years passed and my eyes stabilized until I landed on the big square labeled ’40′ and I couldn’t read any more. The nice eye doctor wrote me a prescription for progressives.

Through a miracle of modern manufacturing, progressives have two different kinds of lenses forcibly melded into one ineffectual whole; sort of like a compass with a whistle in it, a tent trailer, or low-fat, sugar-free ice-cream.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• Alert listeners might notice two pop-culture references in this episode.
• The first is in the title, which is a nod to the Children’s Television Workshop’s science show 3-2-1 Contact. If you’re into nostalgia (and remember the series) you might want to read more about it at:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-2-1_Contact
• The other reference is a little older. See if you can catch my homage to The Great Escape. Read more about it at:
  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057115/

Tags: humor essay | humor column | contacts | eyesight | middle age | comedy