Am I Seeing Things?

I have mono-vision.   Mono-vision means that you are near-sighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other. When I was 10, I started wearing glasses and I wore them until my 30's.

Then I started wearing contacts.  One day I was sitting at my desk at the old Town Hall where I worked and I thought I had my lenses in the wrong eyes.  Everything was blurry.  I switched the lenses but that only made it worse.

A trip to the eye Doctor was in order.  He told me that I needed to start wearing bifocals.  He said it was 'cause I was over 40.  Such bedside manner!  So, I went back to wearing glasses.  Or bifocals.

Then one day about ten years ago, I suddenly could not focus on my computer screen at work.  I had no mid-range vision.  Everything two to three feet away was a blur.  Now I had trifocals.

But I never wore my glasses at home.  I would come in and take them off.  There was no reason to use them in the house.  And when I retired from working, I left my glasses in the car and only wore them when driving or shopping (holding items to your nose to read labels is embarrassing).

And, since I had passed my eyesight test for my driver's license without my glasses, I didn't always wear them when driving.

Then last fall I went grocery shopping and somehow, when I arrived home, I couldn't find my glasses.  I had them on in the store and have no idea how they magically disappeared.  I waited a few weeks thinking that they may turn up.  They didn't.  Nor had they been turned into the lost and found at the store I had shopped at.

So, a new exam and glasses were in order.  The Doctor said that my vision had pretty much stayed the same and to wear the glasses when I felt I needed them.  Basically, for shopping.  I have been very careful to keep them in the case, in my purse, and not carelessly set them down.

I have my computer set up here at my desk so that I do not need my glasses.  But this morning, I could not focus on the letters.  Everything looked like it was written in shadowbox type.

Since the cable has been down completely three times in the last two weeks, I thought it was a reception problem.  I shut the machine down.

A little while ago I came in to check email.  At first the picture was fine, and then the shadowbox returned.  I checked the appearance and picture resolution settings, but couldn't find anything that would cause, or correct, the problem.  Was I suddenly having a new issue with my eyesight?

So, I decided to Google 'computer monitor has shadow on images'.  After a few hits that read like a lot of gobble-de-gook, I found someone who said to check the plug into the monitor from the computer.  Voila!  Problem solved.  What I don't understand is how it came loose in the first place.  Nothing was moved.  Do plugs just loosen up?  It is about as strange as having a computer problem that is solved by unplugging the cord from the back of the tower and plugging it in again.

And it makes me wonder again how I ever got along without 'Google'.  Or without a computer.  Of course, the problems with technology would not exist, but without all the online resources to answer our questions, we would have to actually 'pay' someone to help us.  And now I am sure that some bureaucrat someplace is thinking that we need to find a way to tax people who find answers online.

Well, at least I am not going blind.  Thanks to all the wonderful folks who post answers online.  You saved the day.