There's a Grampa in My Bed!

I should have known it was bad karma to make fun of the aged.  Somewhere deep down inside I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway.

It all started a few years back when Mark and I were somewhere out in the middle of the ocean, me happily reading,  and Mark intensely studying navigational charts in preparation for a test.  Across the table sat our friends Keith and Kathy Williams who, ahem, are our "older" friends (they're grandparents even, but in case they're reading this, I should add they're also hip and cool for being so old).  Kathy was reading too and Keith was studying his own charts preparing for the same test.

Suddenly, a very annoyed Mark looks up from his charts and says, "Can you read this?!!  How do they expect people to read this when they make these chart notations so small?"

His big mistake was that he handed the chart over to me, the youngest crew member on board with the keenest of eyes.  I took the chart, and read off the small notations without any hesitation whatsoever and handed it back to him.

Puzzled, he looked up and said, "Why can't I see that?"

Both Keith and Kathy simultaneously looked at each other, knowingly grinned, then silently answered him by each pulling off their reading glasses  (I call them "grandpa glasses")  and offered them to him.  He grabbed at Kathy's pair with extreme skepticism and put them on.  He looked at the chart and he immediately bore that giddy expression you see so often on a child's face on Christmas morning.  Then, ever so slowly, the cheer began to fade, replaced by the grim horror of a man who realized he had just crossed a threshold that would soon promise a decrepit future full of discounts.

Over two years later, Mark now sports a pair of grampa readers in every room of the house.  He could care less about what I refer to as his "recent handicap".  If he's gotta read, there they are, perched right at the tip of his nose.  I, on the other-hand, am a bit more alarmed at the situation.  At the onset of his alarming discovery, I was a youthful and spry 37.  This is way too young to be married to a man proudly sporting grampa glasses.  Way, waaaaaay too young.

Then, one horrible evening (which has scarred me for life)  while I innocently sat up in bed cheerfully reading something or other, I looked up to speak to my beloved husband and to my alarm, when I looked up I beheld a grampa-looking figure with spectacles perched on the tip of his nose laying in my bed!  "Ahhhhhhh!"  I hollered, "What are you doing?"

He looked up totally puzzled, "What?"  

"What do you mean what?" I say.  "Your old man glasses!  I am WAY too young to have a grampa in my bed!" 

He just looks at me and shakes his head.  "Ridiculous."

This is an every night occurrence now which means I've had to re-invent my insults.  Sometimes I kid him by saying in a low and sultry tone, "Man you look so sexy in those."  Occasionally, this gets him to trade his glasses in for the remote.  Other times he just says, "Listen girlfriend, your day is coming," and he returns to his book.

About six months after that jarring episode, apparently the whole grampa gig became so second nature to him that he unabashedly decided to take the big leap.  There I was, again, minding my own business, this time sitting on a church pew.  I look over at my dear husband and there he is, reading the program with those dang glasses perched on his nose!

I leaned over, wide-eyed, and whispered in a not-so-very reverent tone,  "When did WE decide to take this public??" I gave him the look of extreme dissatisfaction.

He simply rolled his eyes and returned to reading.

Seriously.  Now EVERYONE knows I married to an old guy!

No matter how much shame I try and bring upon the man, nothing works anymore.  He's fully embraced the situation.  Apparently that's what happens to old people.  They don't care.  What's next? Suspenders?  Comfortable shoes?  Senior Discounts?  If I'm married to an old guy, what does that make me?  My youth is spiraling.

Unknown to me, while I've been recklessly making fun of the old man for over a year or two now, there must be some Greek God called "Speck-ti-cles" that my professors failed to mention in my Greek Mythology classes.  This would have been very important information to be forewarned about to be sure.  This is one greek god you don't want to upset, and apparently I did.  This is the only explanation I can reasonably come up with to explain the following event.

Just two short weeks after turning 40 the worst thing imaginable happened.  "Speck-ti-cles" went on a rampage.  I went, as I do everyday, to read the carbohydrate count on the side of a box so that Chloe could calculate her insulin shot, and darn if my arm didn't pull the box away from my eyes!  This happened THREE times in ONE DAY.  Suddenly my heart sank.  My eyes!  My eyes!  Seriously, my eyes quit working OVERNIGHT.

Quickly I ran to grab a pair of Mark's readers (we're not calling them grampa glasses anymore!) and put them on, hoping to confirm that they didn't do a thing to remedy my problem.

Oh crap.

I could see.  See the clear, bold letters and see my youth clearly and boldly fading.  After a month in denial, I got tired of pulling nutritional facts away from my face so I could read them (when it comes to insulin, you've got to get your numbers exactly right).  I surrendered and went out and bought a pair of, well you know.  But, just to read nutritional facts.  Okay, and maybe a few other things I am suddenly not seeing so well.

And now, in a meeger attempt to console myself into thinking that I haven't crossed that threshold of youth I'm clinging so dearly to, I solemnly promise before the Greek god Speck-ti-cles that I will not grant him the satisfaction of catching me doing any of the following:

• Perching them on the tip of my nose
• Going public with them 'till I'm 50
• Ever, ever, wearing them with a chain!
• Claim they are missing when they are on top of my head
  
• Make fun of my husband again (at least for a while)