It all began with a cereal box. There I was, standing in the kitchen in my pajamas, squinting at the nutritional label like it held the secrets of the universe, trying to learn how much fiber I was consuming. I expected a simple answer. Something like, "Eight grams! You’re doing great!" Instead, I was confronted by a tiny paragraph in a font that could only be read by a wide-eyed mosquito. It dawned on me: the fonts were shrinking. I hadn’t been informed, and I certainly hadn’t signed off on it.

The shrinking fonts weren’t just inconvenient—they were insulting. I found myself bending at awkward angles, bringing boxes closer and then further away from my face, as if I were practicing some kind of bizarre yoga move: "Downward-Facing Consumer." The fonts were playing with me, daring me to admit defeat. But I wasn't ready to give in just yet. I grabbed my phone, activated the flashlight, and used it like a spotlight on the tiny letters, hoping to make them yield their secrets. And then it struck me—this was bigger than just cereal boxes. This was an all-out war on my vision.

This shrinking font business doesn’t end with cereal boxes. It was just the beginning, a harbinger of what was to come. No, it’s everywhere. Have you tried reading the instructions on a bottle of aspirin lately? If you’re lucky enough to find your reading glasses (which, of course, are always in the most illogical location—like under the dog, or on my head), you still need to perform a complicated dance of angling the bottle just right under the kitchen light. Then you squint, tilt your head, and hold your breath as if that somehow helps bring the microscopic words into focus. And it’s not just medicine bottles, either. Receipts, clothing tags, even those little stickers on pieces of fruit—they all seem to be getting printed in what must be a font size of negative twelve.

It’s a conspiracy, I tell you—a grand plot orchestrated by the makers of tiny fonts and the optical industry. They must be working together. The font people shrink the print until it’s the size of an ant’s resume and the optometrists cash in as we reluctantly upgrade our glasses. I’ve begun to suspect my ophthalmologist, Dr. Greenbaum, is in on it. She’s always a little too cheerful when she tells me that, once again, I’ll need a stronger prescription. She even winked at me last time. A wink! As if to say, “You’re helping me pay for my new yacht, and you don’t even know it.” It’s almost as if they all belong to some secret society—The League of Illegible Typography. Their motto? “Make it smaller, they’ll never know.”

I’ve developed my own theories. Perhaps the world is simply running out of ink. Or maybe—just maybe—it’s an effort to keep people with aging eyes uninformed. If you can’t read the fine print, you can’t complain about it. Somewhere in a dark room, corporate executives are laughing as they watch us struggle to decipher the terms and conditions on a new credit card. They know we’ll just give up and click “Accept.” And it’s not just terms and conditions—it's ingredient lists, warning labels, and warranties. Somewhere out there is an entire generation of people who have unknowingly waived

their rights to something crucial, all because they couldn't read the fine print.

Of course, I could be overthinking this. It’s possible that my eyes are simply not what they used to be. But admitting that would mean accepting that my eyes are changing, and I'm not quite ready to do that. So, instead, I’ll continue to believe in the conspiracy. I’ll keep my magnifying glass close, my reading glasses closer, and I’ll wage my quiet war against the ever-shrinking fonts of the world—one aspirin bottle at a time. I’ve even considered starting a support group—"Victims of Tiny Print Anonymous." We could gather in poorly lit rooms, each of us with a different brand of magnification device, swapping horror stories about mislabeled Pepto Bismol and unreadable prescription labels. Perhaps, together, we could take a stand. Or at least, we could commiserate over a nice cup of tea—provided someone can read the instructions on how to brew it.