YET ANOTHER SERIOUS ENTRY ...

Every now and then, I have to depart from the old "Uncle Bob" routine and come to this diary with a heavy heart and an important message for everyone who reads this.

These messages are serious and usually extremely hard for me to write.

Today is one of those days.

Ladies and gentlemen...

...I need glasses.

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I know, I know...the tears are flowing down your faces right now as you read this. I'm sure that you're devastated by this news.

You're thinking to yourselves, "Not Uncle Bob! He...he...he's invincible! There's NO WAY he would ever need to stoop so low as to be lumped in with the people with less-than-perfect eyesight! NO WAY!!!"

I'm sorry. I've let you all down with my shitty eyesight.

I know I said "No apologies" yesterday. But when I said that, I had no idea that I was......................

.........nearsighted.

Oh God. It hurts to even type the word.

Nearsighted.

DAMN THIS PAIN!!!

Nearsighted.

Oh jeez...the tears are flowing from my imperfect eyes!!

Nearsighted.

I HAVE NO REASON TO GO ON LIVING!!! I'M NEEEEEEEEARRRRRRRRRRSIGHTED!!!!!

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So anyway...after I left you little trolls yesterday, I drove to work, narrowly missing every other car and tree on my merry little jaunt.

Y'see...my right eye was one blurry mofo, don't 'cha know?

After an eyelash crawled into it in the middle of the night, it was STILL blurry, and that was bothering me.

So I got to work and made an appointment with an optometrist for yesterday afternoon.

I got to the doctor's office and the doctor shook my hand.

OUCH.

I REALLY need to be wearing my sling, just to keep idiots from shaking my hand.

The doctor, bless his fucking heart, was a fan of my column and started going down the list of his favorite columns of mine that I had written lately.

I smiled politely and nodded my head, when I just wanted to scream "FLUSH THIS SHIT OUTTA MY EYE AND LET ME GET BACK TO LIFE!!!!"

But...I didn't.

SHOULD HAVE.

But didn't.

So he and his little Nazi assistant put me through SHITLOADS of tests since I hadn't had my eyes checked since the Nixon administration.

"Can you see those letters?" he asked.

"Of course," I lied, wondering what the hell he was talking about.

Then I saw that there was an eye chart on the opposite wall. It was extremely blurry, but I COULD see the letters.

... Just couldn't make the damned things out.

He made me read those letters for 30 minutes while he kept adjusting the lenses on this humongous contraption that he had planted my face in.

Talk about some boring reading. It was like trying to make sense of Schmez's drunken ramblings.

(Should I apologize to Schmez??)

I think we ALL know the answer to that one.

Innyway...after abusing my eyes with enough eye drops to fill a milk carton, the general consensus was...I was nearsighted.

I was flabbergasted.

Dumbfounded.

Hoodwinked.

Carbumpered.

Flat out...I was not here for fucking eye tests. I KNEW I couldn't see straight. I thought I had made that perfectly clear when I was talking to the doctor. Something got in my eye in my sleep, it hurt, now I can't see. Flush this motherfucking eyelash OUT of my eye and let me go!!!!

He saw no eyelash in my eye.

He saw nothing but a scarred cornea.

Not scared. Scarred.

"I bet you're going to write about THIS next week, huh," he said, all giddy and shit.

Oh yeah, pal. I'm going to ream your ass with hot coals over this one. Fucking make ME wear glasses, will ya??

So anyway...gotta go back on Wednesday for more tests. I think he called it a "corneal topography", where they map out my cornea.

Jeez Louise.

This was NOT supposed to happen. I was supposed to have perfect eyesight until my deathbed so I could always say "Well...I can't hear worth shit, can't hardly walk without limping, can't straighten my arm out completely...but damn it all...I CAN SEE!!!"

Fuck.

I'm getting old.

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The old ball and chain and I went out to eat with my boy Eddie Lavoie and his latest flame, Ramona last night.

As it turned out, I remembered Ramona from my bar days. I don't think I ever talked to her per se ... I just remember her coming out to the bar that Susie and I worked at for years.

She admitted she wasn't old enough to come to the bar back then and would sneak in with her cousin's I.D.

I immediately wrestled her to the ground, handcuffed her and had her thrown in jail for contributing to the delinquency of herself.

Not really. I WANTED to.

Unfortunately ... I couldn't even SEE her to begin wrestling her.

Came home and watched the first episode of "Survivor".

I have a feeling Rudy's going to win this time. He just seems to have his shit together.

Saw the end of the Olympic ceremony with the huge flaming torch/U.F.O. thing. That was pretty awesome.

Still....they should have had someone like John Ritter lighting the torch instead of an Aborigine woman who had never been on television before.

Remember...John Ritter = huge ratings.

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QUESTION OF THE WEEKEND

Would you walk completely naked down a city block for $10,000 if there was no chance you'd get harmed in any way?