I look towards the oldest one out of the corner of my eye and see… nothing. The room ripples as I turn his way

Tim Dowling: ‘It takes a little practice to get the benefit of new lenses’

I am standing by the till at the optician’s, wearing my new glasses. As I turn my head to survey the room, the world around me undulates like a sail billowing in a lazy breeze. “Whoa,” I say.

“Be careful on stairs,” says the man behind the till.

I look down at my blurred feet. “I will,” I say, while wondering whether I should ask him to walk me home.

My prescription is designed to correct everything wrong with my vision – preposterous shortsightedness, increasing longsightedness, astigmatism – in one go. I can read with them, work at a computer and, after a bit of practice, use the stairs.

The distant world – anything beyond six feet – is accessed via an upper central section of lens about the size of a bullet hole. I’m not used to this. I realise that for many years I have been looking askance at things.

As I sit watching a football match with my family, I feel my neck muscles tense with the effort it takes to keep the TV in the middle of my vision.

The oldest one comes in and sits next to me. I look towards him out of the corner of my eye and see… nothing. The room ripples as I turn his way.

“Are those your glasses?” I say. They don’t look like his glasses, because his glasses only have an earpiece on one side.

“No,” he says.

“They’re mine,” my wife says, taking a piece of gum from her mouth and pressing it absentmindedly into the empty chamber of the blister pack from which it came. My wife has been chewing nicotine gum for more than a decade, and a cavalier attitude toward its disposal is an irritating component of the addiction.

“He needs new glasses,” I say.

“Glasses cost money,” says the oldest.

“Maybe his father could do something about that, for once,” my wife says.

Her implication – that I am an exasperatingly unengaged parent – is in this case misleading. She just doesn’t want to watch football.

“I’ll buy him new glasses,” I say. “I’ll buy everybody here new glasses.”

“Yeah, right,” my wife says.

“Fetch me my laptop,” I say.

The oldest one looks up the online service that has his prescription on file. Then he photographs himself at different angles to create an avatar so he can try on glasses virtually.

“I need a credit card,” he says. He presses the card against his forehead and takes another picture.

“What’s that for?” I say.

“For scale, apparently,” he says.

“You mean they have a huge database of photos of people holding up their own credit cards?”

“I’m holding yours,” he says.

Tim Dowling: The first rule of my wife’s book club? I can’t join Read more

Once the avatar is complete, the boy puts a pair of frames on it and passes the laptop to me. I pass it to the middle one, who passes it to the youngest, who passes it to his mother.

“No,” she says, passing it back.

This continues throughout most of the second half, until my wife suddenly leaps up and screams.

“I’ve sat in my gum!” she shouts. “Oh my God!” says the youngest one, laughing.

“There’s gum stuck to the sofa!” my wife shrieks. “There’s gum stuck to your arse,” says the middle one.

The youngest one’s laughter turns silent. His face reddens, and he begins to slide to the floor.

“It’s not funny!” my wife says.

“You’ll get no sympathy from me,” I say, “because I found gum stuck to my laptop lid just this morning.”

“I found gum at the bottom of a mug yesterday,” says the middle one.

“It’s karma,” says the oldest.

“Shut up about karma,” my wife says. “What do I do?”

“You’re supposed to put ice on it,” I say. “Or is it a hairdryer?”

“A hairdryer would make it worse,” says the youngest, wiping his eyes. “It was the heat from her arse that melted it in the first place.”

“Let’s still try both,” I say. My wife stands directly in front of me, facing the TV.

“Get this gum off my trousers!” she says.

“I’m not doing that,” I say.

But I pause to look at the view, if only to admire its pin-sharp focus.