Not long ago, my father-in-law asked me if I could change the battery in his watch. Even though I’ve had no problem changing watch batteries for him over the last few years, this time, something was different.
After pulling my teeny tiny screwdriver set from my toolbox, I strained to find the teeny tiny groove on the back of the watch, in which I could insert my teeny tiny screwdriver to remove it carefully without scratching anything.
I moved the watch closer, then farther, then closer again. It took a while, but I finally found the magic spot where I could see everything and could begin surgery on his watch.
The mission is pretty straightforward. There is a plastic frame that keeps the teeny tiny parts in their proper place. Once the frame is removed, the battery can be extracted easily.
Fortunately, everything went like clockwork. However, with the teeny tiny battery on the tip of my finger, no matter how close or how far I held it away from my eyes, I just couldn’t read the codes inscribed on it. What happened to my close-range eyesight?
I returned the watch frame to its usual position, then snapped the back into place and smiled upon the completion of a job well done. I advanced the watch to the correct time and placed it on the kitchen counter, ready to be returned to my happy customer at the next convenient opportunity.
A couple of hours later, I was passing by the watch and noticed that it had lost about 20 minutes from the correct time. I suspected that my stash of watch batteries might have been getting a little old… aren’t we all?!
I ran to the hardware store to get some new watch batteries to repeat the surgical process. However, in recalling my challenge in seeing the watch through its battery replacement, I decided to stop by a nearby discount store to see if a pair of reading glasses might make a difference.
After trying on a few different pairs in different strengths, the weakest strength was the obvious choice and sufficient for what I needed to do. When I picked up a few neighbouring objects to test out the glasses, I could see some benefit to having a pair for teeny tiny tasks. At $1.25, it wasn’t an expensive proposition.
When I came home with the new battery and the new pair of glasses, it was time to put them to the test. I brought the watch back upstairs, where my teeny tiny screwdrivers were still waiting. I put on my discount store glasses and was instantly amazed at the improvement.
Even though distances went very blurry, items at close range were in sharp focus and seemingly larger. It was time to get to work.
With this new tool, I was able to successfully swap out the battery with little effort and little eye strain. Naturally, the new battery kept time much better than the one that had been sitting in a drawer for a while.
Just for fun, I decided to try another practical application for these glasses: a showdown with the writing on vitamin bottles. I don’t know if it’s the writing that’s getting smaller, or is it my eyes that are not able to focus on the faint fonts, but these new glasses were exactly what I needed to be able to finally read every Latin name and multi-syllabic ingredient.
Then, I tried using the glasses to read a printout of some of my writing at a normal font and realized that they wasn’t necessary. I could still see normal font size without the help of glasses.
Just the same, with two proven practical applications (and probably more on the way), I realized that these little magnifying glasses were here to stay and will likely be part of my reality for the foreseeable future when dealing with teeny tiny objects.
Did you enjoy this post? If you did, your likes and shares are most appreciated.
If you haven’t already, please check out the rest of my blog at andrebegin.blog. From there, you can click on the “Follow” button to receive future posts directly in your inbox.
Sincere thanks for reading!
Have a great day,
André
ANDRE BEGIN 
Leave a comment