Wendy Rank – March 2025
I’m not wearing bifocals
Don’t ever, ever call them that. Unless you want to see me cry. And you do not want to see me cry. I’m like Bruce Ban- ner that way.
Anyway, I’m wearing Progressives. That’s what they’re called. Progressive lenses. Which doesn’t really make me feel any better. But at least you’re not picturing a graying, balding, portly Ben Franklin when I talk about my eyewear.
I’ve had glasses for years. Which was fine. I only needed them to drive or watch a movie. When I was young and single, I cringed when I pulled out my glasses for, say, Scream 2. But my date – taken aback when I popped on my tortoiseshell frames – flushed and told me I looked cute and watched me instead of Neve Campbell. If only he’d stayed that sweet.
A few years ago, the trouble reading small print began. “Have you bought readers?” my eye doctor asked. I mean, does she hate me? I’d never say something that awful to her. “No,” I said, turning down the pamphlet she proffered on Progressive lenses.
Listen. A little squinting, a little bright light – I could get the gist of whatever small print I was reading. Of course, it didn’t stay that way. That small print became harder and harder to read. I resorted to using my phone to take a picture of the small print, enlarging it with the spread of my fingers. “That’s so clever!” a friend once said. I didn’t feel clever. I felt like Ben Franklin.
Who – yes. Was a great statesman and inventor. But he also took naked “air baths” in the window of his London home. I – I don’t want to take naked air baths in the window. I just want to be able to see, unaided by plastic concoctions on my face. “The good news,” the eye doctor told my husband a few years back, “is that as you age, your vision is approaching 20/20.” “What?” I said. “I suppose he’ll get more handsome, too? Build muscle mass? Get taller?”
Yes – sorry. My husband and I do our regular eye exams together. It’s sort of a date. Listen. I’m fully aware I have bigger problems than bifocals when I’m having a date in the middle of an ophthalmologist’s office. But, hey. At least I’m not taking naked air baths in my window. A few months ago, I capitulated. I ordered the Progressive lenses. I had to. I couldn’t see. You could have been taking a naked air bath right in front of me and I’d never know.
I love the Progressives. I do. I can see! Like, everything! I’m almost as good as Christopher Reeve’s Superman, scan- ning Lois Lane for cancer. And this is what I’ve discovered about Progressives. And bifocals I imagine, too. They’re – they’re not magic. You can’t set your eyes all willy-nilly and expect to see.
If you’re reading, you must hold the material low and nearly arm’s length from your face. Then you have to sort of tilt your chin up as you cast your gaze down, like you haven’t quite figured out how to flirt. If you want to see off in the distance with any clarity whatsoever, reverse your movements. Tuck your chin and look up, like you’re swallowing the world’s worst postnasal drip. Sorry for that imagery.
But at least you’re not picturing an air bath.
Contact Wendi Rank on Instagram @wendirank
