In honor of April Fools' Day, a day for comedy and laughter, here is a humorous essay on a subject many of you are familiar with, getting new glasses:
I’ve
worn glasses since I was six years old, long before it was cool. I don’t mind wearing them, but what I really
dread is going to the eye doctor’s and getting new glasses. The experience is rarely successful and
hardly comfortable. But my current
glasses had outlived their usefulness and I could no longer see clearly. So last week, I broke down and went to the
eye doctor.
For more humorous essays, see:
13 Ways to Know You're Traveling Too Much
Murphy's Law of Presenting With Technology
I’ve
worn glasses since I was six years old, long before it was cool. I don’t mind wearing them, but what I really
dread is going to the eye doctor’s and getting new glasses. The experience is rarely successful and
hardly comfortable. But my current
glasses had outlived their usefulness and I could no longer see clearly. So last week, I broke down and went to the
eye doctor.
When
I got there, the sign over the front desk read “If you don't see what you're
looking for, you've come to the right place." Perfect.
I
was ushered into the exam room and pretended to read the magazines while
secretly checking out the contraptions around me that looked like a cross
between medieval torture equipment and James Bond spy gadgets. Then the eye doctor came in, the house lights
went down and we began with the alphabet.
There
was only one problem with the alphabet chart: the letters didn’t seem to be in
English. They were blurry blobs of ink, one in the
shape of the Greek letter omega and another like the Chinese character for
water.
I
tried to memorize some of the shapes on the top line with what I thought was my
good eye, but when I switched to the other eye, what I remembered didn’t match
what little I could actually read, so either my eyes are going or my mind is.
After the alphabet game, the doctor put on his
miner’s hat, which had a laser light fastened to it which he focused directly
on my eyes. I felt like I was in a
police interrogation. I was supposed to
focus on his ear and it was so close that had I scissors, I could have trimmed
his ear hairs, though that would probably not have been a smart move given my
astigmatism, near-sightedness and far-sightedness.
Then
came what I can only describe as a Star Trek hand-held phaser set on
"stun," which was supposed to blow air into my eye so the doctor
could check for obscure eye diseases. The impact left my eyes watering and my nose
running. He gave me a tissue, just one (one
of those flimsy, one-ply tissues like you find in public restrooms). I tried to wipe my eyes and blow my nose with
it delicately while he pretended not to notice.
We
then moved on to the multiple-choice test.
Which lens made my vision better, he asked, as he switched lenses
rapidly, A or B, first or second, this or that?
I’m usually a good test taker, but here I felt stupid because I really
couldn’t tell the difference and he gave no hints as to what the correct answer
was. It worried me that my vision and
the safety of pedestrians everywhere depended on those split-second decisions.
When
I had survived the multiple-choice test, it was on to the grand finale: pupil dilation. I had been dreading this moment since I
walked in the door. The concept was for
the doctor to put some eye drops in so my pupils would dilate and he could
check for more problems. The eye drops
felt like needles shooting glue into my eyes.
After
he looked into my eyes, I was escorted to the waiting room for the mandatory
one-hour waiting period. My eyes were
too stuck open to read anything so I tried to focus on the wallpaper and smile
at the other patients who politely ignored the fact that I looked stoned. Anywhere else, they would have called the
police.
Eventually,
my eyes began to un-dilate. Then, the
fun really began when I got to pick new frames. I put in my contacts so I could
see what I looked like. The first pair I
chose happened to be a designer frame that cost more than a trip to
Tahiti.
I
quickly put that one back and tried to figure out the advertised sales, which
offered free lenses, but only if I bought the designer frames, or free no-name
frames, but only if I bought the lenses with UV protection, anti-reflective
glare and no-line bifocals.
So
I gave up on getting the best price and decided to focus only on selecting the
right frame. I pulled all the interesting frames off the rack and separated
them into piles – “yes,” “no” and “what was I thinking.”
The
sales clerk tried to be helpful by pointing out that the shape of the glasses
should complement the shape of my face and we tried to figure out what could
possibly complement my round face, square hair, oval eyes and triangular nose.
After an analysis of my features that would have made my high school geometry
teacher proud, she retreated to the sales counter across the room, cursing me
under her breath because she would have to put back all the frames when I was
done.
After
an hour or so, the qualifying heats were over and we were down to the finals. But it was too close to call. I was so confused that they all started to
look identical and ugly. It was near
closing time, so I just sighed, closed my eyes and pointed, “this one and take
all the others away.”
Of
course, what I ended up buying was one of the first three frames I had tried
on, which had looked okay, but I couldn't be absolutely sure until I had tried
on the other 142 frames in the store.
A few days
later, I had my new glasses and was happily tripping down the stairs in them. The ordeal was over… at least until the next
time I needed new glasses.
© 2002 Gilda Bonanno
For more humorous essays, see:
13 Ways to Know You're Traveling Too Much
Murphy's Law of Presenting With Technology
Gilda Bonanno's blog www.gildabonanno.blogspot.com