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Sometimes old age creeps up on little cat feet. Sometimes it punches you in the eyes.

My baby blues had always been my best ally. They could read the bottom line during the ophthalmologist’s exam—no problem. They could handle the smallest type in the newspaper without glasses.

They even won me a few bucks as a college student. Driving back to campus on interstate highways, with a Volkswagen full of pals, we’d break up the monotony by playing When Can You Read the Distant Road Sign? Five dollars went to the winner. I always prevailed, by several seconds.

But three years ago, here came rude reckoning.

I had attended an out-of-town meeting alone. I was only two hours’ drive from home.

It was after 9 p.m., so it would have made sense to crash in a motel room. But why waste money? Two hours was nothing. This road warrior had been licensed for 60 years. Let’s go, big boy.

However, it was one of those nights that only ducks appreciate. Raining, gusting, dark, ominous.

I usually hold the wheel with one hand. On this night, I used two. Whenever a truck passed me — and those cowboy truckers were going 80-plus! — the splash on the windshield would blind me temporarily.

But for the first time, something else blinded me temporarily: The lights of oncoming vehicles.

As they approached, their headlights splashed, into a starburst pattern. The splash didn’t last, because the vehicle was soon beyond me. But in the gloom and slop, the headlight splash repeated, time and again, as each vehicle came past me.

If you’ve ever had cataracts, I can see you nodding your head.

Cataracts are filmy deposits that gather on the lenses of the eyes. They build with age. They can’t be prevented. But they can be corrected surgically — and often are.

In fact, cataract surgery is one of the most successful in modern medicine. According to the American Medical Association, the procedure works safely and effectively more than 99 percent of the time. They remove your “birth lenses” and give you new ones.

The reviews tend to be gushing. Patients rhapsodize about how much brighter colors are. They can read the baseball box scores in the newspaper again. In many cases, they can even drive in nighttime rainstorms again.

But the surgery isn’t safe until cataracts have developed to a certain point. Mine haven’t. So I am firmly in Cataract Never-Never Land. The docs say three or four more years, give or take.

Meanwhile, there is no question that driving at night is much more difficult and dangerous than it once was. I can still do it in a pinch. But it’s jarring to pilot a car down a two-lane street well after dark — and to hunt hard for the white line that divides my lane from the one coming in the opposite direction.

I am aiming the car, not driving it. Not safe.

Luckily, I have a spouse who drives very well, and whose lenses are still cloud-free. She didn’t have to implore me or lecture me. We agreed: Grandpa can drive during the day. But not at night any more.

If I’m alone, I summon a ride share. If we’re together, and we’re leaving an evening event, I now clamber into the shotgun seat without a word. We move off. We arrive home. I pat her on the shoulder. “Well done,” I say.

But here’s what I want to say:

“I’ve always been the driver. I’ve always expected to do that. It’s part of my longtime hubby job — taking care of you. And now I can’t do that as much or as well as I once did. That’s a big adjustment.”

However, she holds the ace of trumps.

A gigantic SUV approaches from the opposite direction. The headlights blossom out into a three-foot-wide blast.

“Headlight splash?” she will ask. Yes, I will confess.

There are worse things than cataracts. Some fine day, I’ll have the surgery. For now, I am a grudging, daytime-only, control-surrendering driver. It’s as tough a pill to swallow as wrinkles and flab.

Bob Levey is a national award-winning columnist