My Reading Glasses vs. The Testicle-Seeking Grizzly

and other daily annoyances

Getting old is a pain in the arse.

Much worse than that?

It’s expensive.

I spend a lot of money in order to replace things that are wearing out.

At fifty, my eyes are shot and my brain not far behind.

I’m always losing my reading glasses.

How much is it worth it to you to be able to see well enough to read.

Dear reader, if your eyes work pretty much okay, you’re likely fine most of the time. You can get by and identify vital things. You can determine things in the distance, like a speeding grizzly, running towards your crotch, ready to rip your balls off with its meaty, meaty paws.

If you can see something like that, how much is it worth it to you to be able to read? ?

For me, it's a dollar a week.

What is a dollar divided by seven?

I don't know. 12, 13 cents a day?

If you have a calculator and a moment, feel free to do the math. For our purposes dear reader, the specific sums are less than important.

Every six months, I run out of reading glasses. I buy them in packs of six.

Jeffrey brings them to me.

Well, Jeffrey, that Amazonian Bozo sends one of his millions of minions to deliver my glasses.

But I do buy them from Jeffrey.

Jeffrey brings me my reading glasses because I'm too lazy to go to the store to buy reading glasses.

I don't really like Jeffrey, but he's too fucking convenient to ignore.

Having the ability to see is about as important as it is to have the ability to walk away from an asshole.

But Jeffrey is a very convenient asshole.

I think of Jeffrey the same way desperate sailors think about ugly women: Any port in a storm…

Glasses in a lot of ways are almost important as shoes.

Maybe not if you're trying to run away from a grizzly bear that wants to rip your testicles off with its meaty meaty paws.

But that being said, it would be interesting to see the detailed colour and texture of his fur as he chomped down into your perineum with that oso powerful mouth,

Actually, if you were going to be attacked by a grizzly bear, I don't think they'd stopped just at the perineum or your taint.

Why stop there? T’aint enough to satisfy a hungry grizzly.

A big old bear would come right onto ya and give your pelvis a full crushing blow with the weight of its meaty, meaty jaws.

Regardless, in these situations, one could argue that a good pair of sneakers or shoes would be way more important than having reading glasses.

Losing things seems to run in the family. For example, one of my children was the Wayne Gretzky of losing shit. They are so good at losing things, they could lose a fart in a phonebooth. when they were five, I remember shouting, "Okay, how did you lose one of your crocs?"

This happened regularly.

Sometimes it would just be tucked under a bench or a hidden behind a bag, fairly easy and obvious to deal with.

Other times, the missing crock was more of a mystery.

We have found crocs buried in the sand.

We have found crocs in other kids' backpacks.

We've even found crocs up a tree. It’s a rare bird indeed - the wilted northern tree crock.

I have yet to find a child's crock in the meaty meaty paws or the meaty meaty jaws of a big fucking ugly grizzly bear, though.

That's probably for the best.

And while thankfully no bears were involved with the Crocs, the losing-things saga continues.

The same child is now a teenager, a young adult, really, and there's still losing stuff.

And when they lose shit, I lose my shit at them.

Well… that’s not entirely true, dear reader.

Ya know what?

It's easier to be snappy at a kid when they have lost their school computer or an important piece of their sports equipment than it is to recognize that I also lose things - like my glasses

But fuck that.

When the kids losing shoes and shit, they’re not taking after me.

They’re acting like their mother!

Or at least that’s how it appears to me at the time.

It’s certainly NOT ME who’s disorganized, flaky and always losing vital things like his car keys or wallet.

But you know why I can’t see how much my child is like me?

I’ve lost the ability to read the room. I can’t see at all.

How could I? I've lost all six pairs of my goddamn glasses.

This is why I spend at least 13 cents a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year getting Jeffrey to bring me glasses in one of his lumbering vans driven by an underpaid new Canadian.

I don’t have a lot of patience with my kids when they lose their shit.

Maybe I should pick up a new box of glasses and see my kids more clearly lest they find their shoes and run away from me as though I were an angry grizzly bear, attempting to rip their dick off .

Keep your eye on the prize and stay foolish ya jerks.