See a problem here?

IHATE things that don’t work right. Especially new things. When I was 9 years old, my parents laid out an electric train under the Christmas tree, a shiny locomotive, three cars and a caboose.

It didn’t matter that it was a Union Pacific engine and a New York Central caboose.

I plugged the transformer in and moved the controller.

Nothing moved.

It was three days later before I got a new transformer that worked.

YEARS LATER, when I got a new mo-ped (a bike with a motor) the taillight burned out the first hour I owned it. The next week the fuel system went bust. I rolled it back to the dealer who solved the situation by giving me a new bike, a better one.

Nice gesture, I thought. But there was still the feeling of disappointment over the first failure.

A YEAR AGO, when we had ceiling fans installed at our house, one of them gave out a loud clicking noise when it was turned on. A ceiling fan takes time and effort to install. Why hadn’t they made it right the first time? It’s a company with a big name.

Testily, I went to the computer and sent a hot e-mail message to the company’s customer service office.

The nearest repair service, came the answer, is in Memphis.

Little jets of steam came out of my ears. I wrote back and thanked them for their patronizing reply, but I said I’d be danged if I’m going to have a fan I just bought new brought in for “repair.”

I needn’t have gone though the fretting. The electrician who installed it solved the problem by taking it back to the place I bought it and exchanging it for another one.

AS AGE has crept up upon me, I’ve had to pay more attention to my spectacles. My eyes are still pretty good and I wear half glasses for reading as my picture above shows. My distance vision is still fine.

But I also require a special pair of glasses when I sit at my computer. They are made so that they focus on the computer screen at a distance of about a foot.

These work fine, except when I have to read a letter or a printed page. I have to take them of, slip on my reading glasses to scan the printing, and then replace the computer glasses to continue work.

One day a light-bulb came on in my head: Why not order computer glasses with a bifocal lens? I wouldn’t have to change glasses in midstream.

I TOOK my prescription to an optical dispenser and handed him my old frames. Righto, the person in a white coat said. Can do.

Three days later the new bifocal lenses in the old frame came in.

I seated myself at my computer and put them on.

I felt like I was under water.

Back to the dispenser. “You made the bifocal part OK, but you put clear glass in the top part. It’s wrong for the computer.”

OK, sorry, said the person in the white coat.

Three days later I got a call the new lenses were in.

When I tested them on the computer, they were perfect.

When I looked down to read a printed page, I again felt like I was underwater. Back to the dispenser.

“You fixed the top,” I said, “but you made plain glass out of the bifocal part.”

So far I’d driven 14 miles trying to get my glasses right.

Oh, sorry.

I was sweet. I did not say something smart like “I’m wasting time and gasoline coming to this place.”

They sent the glasses off for the third time after a little local fiddling.

I’m waiting, and wondering where the problem lies. I need the glasses. And selling spectacles is supposed to be their business.