Adam@Home by Rob Harrell for March 31, 2020

Hey, I’m 82 and I don’t call my glasses cheaters. Of course, I’ve had to wear glasses since I was about 14. At that point I told my mother I needed them and she asked me why. I said “Because my arms aren’t getting any longer.”

I don’t think I’ve heard them called cheaters in 50 years!

Unless they give you X-Ray vision so you can see the answers to a test, how can they be called cheaters?

I started using “cheaters” about 25 years ago. I had cataract surgery in my left eye last year, and now I can read most print without glasses.

Someone had to Google it… The term “Cheaters” was at first applied to card players wearing sunglasses in order to help players retain their “Poker face”. Sunglasses were first marketed to the public in 1929 along the Atlantic coast by Sam Foster, who sold them under the name of Foster Grant. The term eventually moved on to cheap mass produced reading glasses, which effectively “cheated” the optometrist out of work and money.

I am also someone who wore glasses since they were a kid (age 7). Coke-bottle lenses, graduated to contacts, eyes got too dry in middle age for those, so got Lasik. But “old age” eyes still need reading glasses and eyes are getting bad again so we are back to (light prescription) glasses. Readers in every room of the house, glasses for night driving, prescription sunglasses, “reading” sunglasses, glasses for playing the piano (for the specific distance). It’s insane.

Bite the bullet? Bullets are made of lead. not a good idea.

Just made the switch from cheaters to progressives at 59. Driving me nuts…

“Antediluvian”, Adam. You are a Superannuated-American.

Better not be late to the early bird special, Adam.

Wow. Cheaters. It is hard being young enough to think those terms are for old folks and old enough to remember the folks they were good enough for.

Adam is making a spectacle of himself.

I wear contacts (nearsighted). When my arms weren’t long enough anymore my Optometrist gave me two lens strengths, one for distance and one for reading. But doing that gave me headaches, so she gave her blessing to using cheaters.

Now I’m feeling guilty about wearing glasses.

Katie is such a little whippersnapper!

My brother only started to wear “cheaters” because he couldn’t stretch his arms any longer.

I just call them “drugstore magnifiers.” Started wearing them a few years ago just for reading, and it’s never bothered me. Absurd, really, the things people get hung up on. Adam, get over it.