Keeping score

      I’m becoming increasingly surprised that like an untidy zombie, I don’t see a string of body parts trailing behind me. . .
Life has become a mental score card of function failure as I check off once-dependable body parts that no longer operate quite the way they used to.

      To begin with, I’ve noticed that now every time I wash my hair, I have an eardrum full of water. This never happened before.

 Am I becoming more porous?

With my masters degree came my first pair of reading glasses, usually bought in packs of three at Costco. As the strengths increased, so did moments of crisis such as when shopping, I found I had left my glasses at home and was unable to read the price tags. Or moments of hilarity (totally one-sided) when, out to dinner sans glasses, I was unable to read the menu and had to prevail upon my husband to be my interpreter.  

Of course, buying your glasses at CVS and being forced to read like a trombone player in rigor mortis is one thing, while distinguishing I91 north from I91 south quite another. Long distance is now problematic and safety has entered the picture. After umpteen decades of watching others march off to the eye doctor, I recently found myself staring into a contraption with another person’s face on the other side six inches from mine. Rather than a sexy scene from the Grey’s Anatomy micro-surgery suite, I was on my way to my first pair of grown-up glasses.

Soon I fear I’ll also be no more dexterous than my cat since my right thumb has decided to go wonky. If my left follows in its stead, I’ll have lost my place in the hierarchy of opposable thumbs.

Pulling bills out of my wallet, and, god help me, even signing my name, can make me wince.
This has critical implications; the economy is depending on me.

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