Help is on the Way. Maybe.

I’ve recently had cataract surgery and as the song says, “I can see clearly now.”   It’s truly a modern miracle.  Clock numbers are there again.  Street signs are legible.  I can see birds in the trees.  Flowers in the garden.

That’s all good.  Wonderful, in fact.

However, I can now see things on my face and hands that others may have noticed earlier but have had the decency and self-discipline not to tell me about.

All of a sudden, this isn’t adding up.  I spent perfectly good money so I could see better.  Now I have to spend even more money to hide what I saw.

All those splotches, dark areas, deep creases and puffy-nesses are now abundantly clear and visible to the naked (i.e. corrected to 20/20) eye.  And the eye is not happy.

Accordingly, I took myself to our local cosmetics emporium.  I had but barely arrived when I wanted to leave but their bright lights and mirrored walls encouraged me to stay the course if I were ever to have a shred of self-respect.  Or the confidence to appear in public, now that I was seeing what others have seen for who-knows-how–long.

I wandered in that glitzy, shiny, over-stated, beguiling never-never land all by myself for a while before I begged for assistance.   As it happens, there was more than one person who was eager to help me.  There’s good and bad to that.  Was I that needy or were they just naturally helpful?  Turns out, I think it was both of those things.

I was there for quite a while and won’t bore you with the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the trials, the patches, the promises and assurances.  Suffice it to say that I spent money.  More money than I’d planned on spending.  No one was less surprised at that than I was.  Those people are good.  They’re skilled at being optimistic, positive and flattering.

What I bought stays between me and my mirror but I will tell you that one of those nice people sold me a “face lift in a box” and told me that I will see “amazing” results in five to seven days.

Even I know better than that but hope has to spring eternal.