My eyes aren’t what they used to be. In fact, they used to be martini olives. Those were the days!

The sad fact is that I can’t find anything anymore. I don’t just mean small things, like a screwdriver (the tool, not vodka and orange juice, which are in the liquor cabinet and the refrigerator, respectively). I mean big things.

Like my car.

Whenever I leave it in a parking lot to run an errand or go to the gym, I can’t find it when I come back out.

Even if I make a mental note of which row I parked in, the car is never there. I know it hasn’t been stolen because my license plate, JZEE, which my wife, Sue, got for me years ago, would be easy to trace.

I am convinced that instead of car thieves, there are now car movers, prankish people who start my car and drive it to another parking space so I can’t find it.

Another reason could be that my memory, or what’s left of it, is also pulling pranks on me. I base this theory on the fact that my car, which I bought a few months ago, is silver and my old car was black.

Still, after all this time, I look for a black car.

Once I walked up to one, the exact make and model of my previous vehicle, and tried to open it. I’m lucky I wasn’t arrested.

I suppose I could have claimed I didn’t intend to steal the car but was trying to move it to another parking space to prank the owner.

Even when I do find my car, I can seldom back out without having to wait for someone walking aimlessly behind me. I imagine he is looking for his car.

When he finds it, nine times out of 10 it will be parked next to mine and I will have to wait while he loads groceries into his car. This sometimes takes as long as it would take to grow the actual food.

It’s worse when I am trying to find a parking space and see someone who is about to pull out but doesn’t. He’ll sit there for an eternity while I sit in my car, blinker on, waiting impatiently to pull into a space that I won’t be able to find later on.

And that’s just the big stuff. Harder to find are the small things.

Let’s say you are in a store looking for a sympathy card. You find one that says:

Violets are blue,

Roses are red.

Sorry to hear

Your grandma is dead.

“Nah,” you say to yourself, because other customers want to get away from you, “this one won’t do.”

So you decide to put it back. But you can’t find the spot where you saw the card only 10 seconds before! Somehow, those very same cards have mysteriously moved or vanished into thin air.

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you. It is clearly a cosmic conspiracy.

It’s even worse at home. Whenever Sue asks me to get something, I’ll ask where it is. She will tell me it’s in a drawer, but when I look for the item, it’s never there.

The question is: Has Sue moved it or has the item — gleefully anticipating my dilemma — moved on its own?

Maybe it’s hiding under something I wasn’t looking for. Or it’s in the back of the drawer, which purposely won’t open all the way. Or it has jumped to the next drawer and is laughing at me.

This proves that inanimate objects are all in cahoots against me.

I don’t want to think I am going crazy. That happened a long time ago. So I figure I should see an eye doctor.

I hope I can find my car in the parking lot.

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