Look for the whites of their eyes …

Not much scares me.

I am a brave guy. Brave squared even. Some might even go so far as to call me crazy. Back in the day, I was the guy who played chicken with cars … except I did not have a car. I was the guy that jumped of cliffs to be sure it was safe for others to jump off. I was the one who would be asked to talk to cranky old folk with grudges. I was the first to try food in China. Now that I am older and don’t recover from things as easily, I might move down the list from first to maybe third or fourth. I am still very willing, but the body tends to disagree at times.

To be perfectly clear, I am not phased by much.

That said, there are one or two things that leave me quivering in my shorts: mayonnaise, and any kind of shopping.

Today I had one of those scary experiences. I falls in the category of shopping, so I definitely had to brace myself anyway, but my tremors of fear went well beyond the initial shop-o-phobia … I almost had to hold my mommy’s hand. Fortunately she was right there beside me.

You see today I had to shop for glasses.

Yep. I had to finally admit that the scourge of aging has also caught up with my eyes. I am no longer the eagle-eyed young lad (that I have technically not been for about twenty years). I went to the eye doctor for the first time in decades, and it was scary enough dealing with all those new fangled devices. Back in my day it was a magnifying glass, a couple of toothpicks, and an eye chart. After they determined that I do better than the average bat but should not enter any dart throwing competitions to the death, they gave me my prescription for … bifocals nonetheless (technically I did not have to have them but this is MY dramatic story!). Then I had to get into the really scary part … picking out the glasses.

Like I said, fortunately my mommy was right there with me. And the optician was a very helpful woman. Between the two of them they managed to find me a pair of glasses that would not horrify the neighbors, and I could live with wearing. However, I still have that quiver going. For it will be another seven to ten days before I actually try the suckers out for the first time. What really scares me is that for the first time in many years …

… I might see the world as it really is. Ahhhhhhhhh!!

P.S. I was kidding about the mayonnaise.