They say your eyes have reached their old prime at 11 or 12 years old, then it is all down hill.
Well I remember being a little worried then. What do they mean? Will it all start getting blurry? I already had to squint to try to read things.
Once I was an adult and could afford contact lenses, a new world opened up. Eyes over the hill indeed! Now reality was clear and frankly, kinda harsh in its sharpness.
I waited to wonder what nuance this peaked at 12 meant?
WHY SO TINY?
Then I began to notice, particularly after 55 but a little before, that print on packages was too small to make out. It really seemed smaller. We began to call it bacteria print since it looked like bacteria in a petri dish who seem to not know the alphabet or how to spell well at all.
One explanation I heard a decade or so ago was the hot shot designers were mostly 30 somethings or less and had no idea they were soon to be the vision impaired. I suppose we can attribute homo-my generation is all a sapient for the error of inclusion. It might have even been more sinister than that.
First the smallest print was the ingredient list, which might have information that would seem troubling to one if it was legible. It could have been to save a bit of ink. Now days even the plastic types triangle info for recycling is getting worn away, sometimes a number is somewhere near it. Is that the right kind for our recycling? We only take two of the seven or more types, some places take them all!
Now there are even plastic containers that no matter where you look; no triangle, no 5 0r is that an upside-down 2? No nothing but into the trash.
I am not sure aging and eye degeneration are the only reason for the small print seeming unintelligible, but at times it is true that throw sunlight on the small print and I can read it well, especially without contacts in that restrict eye focusing some. Eyes do seem to need more light but also find it at times too bright and irritating. I cannot say colors have changed at all, seeming as vivid as ever, and with contacts or glasses I still get 15-20 vision. Meaning in case you forgot having 20-20 vision and all; that I can see at 20 feet what normal can only make out at 15. But the ability of the eye to focus does seem to decline.
So you under thirty year olds. Is the small print really tiny or are the oldsters making it up?
Even with a wide screen TV. Some of the small print disclaimer or whatever it is, is both too small to decipher and on too short to care to try.
COMING TO A PETRI DISH NEAR YOU, THE MOVIE OF A LIFETIME: AGING!
Get the popcorn!

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