Contacts

Where to begin?

I never really thought of the troubles of getting old in this "new age" where everything is tiny and simple and small. I mean, phones are small, cameras are small, computers are getting small; the only thing getting bigger is the tv! But that's beside the point. Everything is small.

Now to the story and the point of my mindless typing.

My dad called me down the stairs this morning. His contact had fallen out. Now, you may or may not know that dad is in his sixties. I was as surprised as anyone else to learn that he was going to be wearing contacts. My first thought, upon learning this, was "how in the world is he going to take them in and out?" I look at my dads hands. They are quite large.

Now imagine a hand like his putting contacts in. Is it just me, or do you think it looks a little painful too? Idk...

Sorry, back to the story. So dad asked me to put his contact in for him. I'm squeemish so I turned that opportunity down. This was one mountain he'd have to conquer himself. I told him, and showed him, how I would go about the task, then turned him loose to have at it. It was quite obvious that there was going to be trouble from the first try.

I'd watch as he struggled to get the contact all loosey goosey and not in a jumbled mess on his finger tip. Success came, but the contact was so dry that he'd have to shove it back into the solution to get it wet again and start all over. Then putting it in his eye. That was a joke! He'd get it close, then just as he almost had it in, he'd twitch and his eyelid would fall and he'd look the other direction and end up stabbing the contact half into his eye and half on top of his eyelid. Even more, he'd pull his hand away and say, "is it in?" How can you not laugh while watching that then seeing the contact still on his fingertip as he says it? Granted, he's old and going blind, thus the point of the contacts, but still...really?

After many many attempts, I told him to go to the eye doctor's office and have one of the nice assistant ladies jab it in for him because his daughter is too much of a wimp to do it for him.

So I'm laughing because he actually took my advice and left. But it left me thinking: what am I going to do as I get older and things get just too complicated for my old brain to wrap around? Not saying my dad is dumb or stupid or anything! Just, when he was young, if you had problems seeing, you wear glasses, simple as that. Will I be too proud to put the glasses on when I'm old too? Wear what the kids wear to be cool? I don't want to be asking my kids or grand kids how to work something and look stupid for not knowing how!

brrrp....*sigh*

P.S. not a picture of my dad's hand, just a random pic off google search!