Want to save 50% of the cost of a common surgery? Keep reading. You won’t need a coupon or Medicare. As most people become chronologically gifted, a right of passage is enjoying cataract surgery.
Though not nearly as much fun as getting your driver’s license at 16, voting at 18, or qualifying to purchase adult beverages at 21, it is age related.

The prospective patient is first subjected to something the ophthalmologist ironically refers to as the Glare Test. You sit in a darkened room as someone shines a flash light directly into your eyes and asks if you can see a chart on the wall. You can’t see the chart because there is a flash light two inches from your face painting your retinas white. Unsurprisingly, you fail the Glare Test. Ah ha, there is a cure for flunking the Glare Test.

Several thousand dollars worth of cataract surgery will make you right as rain. Coincidently, the owner of the facility where you are having your eyes examined can provide such surgery. Yet another Festivus Miracle.
Where is this rambling column about cataract surgery going? Why should I waste my time reading it, you ask yourself? Well, Gentle Reader, you have either already had cataract surgery or you will eventually get to enjoy quality time with optical laser beams and lens implants.

As previously mentioned, this surgery ain’t cheap. You can save half the cost with one simple trick. Be born as a Cyclops.
If you are already born, this solution is kind of tricky, but depending upon your religious persuasion, Zeus could make you a born-again Cyclops. In case you missed that day in Mythology class, let us review what a Cyclops is.

According to the Greek mythology, a Cyclops is an extremely strong giant with one eye in the center of his forehead. Naturally, the Cyclops will need only one cataract surgery, thereby saving 50% of the usual and customary fee. If the Cyclops’ cataract is in its early stages, wearing a monocle like Rich Uncle Pennybags, AKA Mr. Monopoly, or a 1930’s era Austrian Duke with a saber scar on his cheek could stave off the cataract surgery for several years.

If you have not been lucky enough to be born a Cyclops, how might you become one to save on cataract surgery? Allow me to once again mansplain stuff to you. In the beginning there were three Cyclops brothers who belonged to the Titan Tribe: Brontes (Thunder), Steropes (Lightning) and Arges (Bright). Their Daddy was a Titan, Uranus the Sky God and their Momma was Gaia the Earth Goddess. Obviously, they came from good stock.

If they had been living in Charleston, South Carolina at the time of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara they would have been received along with Bonnie Blue in all the best homes in Charleston. However, the Cyclops came along well before U.S. Civil War One took place.

There was an ongoing Uncivil War between the Titans and the Olympians over who was going to be the Big Kahuna to run the Elysian Fields and Earth. Uranus led the Titans. Zeus led the Olympians. As usual in Greek Mythology, there was a disturbance in the house of Uranus. Being before Rodney King, no one could just get along. Family bonds were fraught. After a particularly ugly family ruckus, Uranus locked up the Cyclops Brothers in his basement.

Prior to being locked downstairs, the Brothers had become excellent blacksmiths, specializing in really nifty weapons. Zeus learned that the Boys were pretty good making implements of destruction. He freed them from Uranus’ basement and put them to work for him making weapons.

As Vlad Putin learned to his sorrow in the Ukraine, logistics are extremely important in a war. If your weapons are better than the enemy’s stuff, you have a better chance to win.
The Boys went right to work in the Greek equivalent of current day defense contractor Northrup Grumman. They began making weapons for Zeus’ military industrial complex.

They turned out real lightning thunderbolts for Zeus to hurl at the Titans. Northrup Grumman liked Zeus’ thunderbolts so much it named its attack jet the A-10 Thunderbolt II after the Cyclops’ weapon. The A-10 jet is affectionately known as the Warthog because it is as effective as it is ugly.

As a zoological side note, baby warthogs are proof that male warthogs find female warthogs attractive. But I digress. Back to the Cyclops war machine.
In addition to Zeus’ thunderbolts, they produced the magic Trident for Poseidon the Sea God and the Invisibility Cap for Hades the God of the Underworld. With these logistical advantages, the Olympians were able to defeat the Titans without a HIMARS rocket system.

So, what have we learned today? If you weren’t born a Cyclops, go ask Zeus, I think he’ll know how to change you. One eye’s cataract is cheaper to
correct than two.

No Cyclops was harmed during the writing of this column. You are now free to wander about the country.