I have worn glasses since the second grade, which quite frankly is practically decades of corrective lenses. Deep in the recesses of my brain, I have always been afraid of the eye doctor yelling at me for picking the wrong lens. You know, when they ask, “which is clearer? One or two?”
By God, today it actually happened.
I haven’t had new glasses since 2010, when I was pregnant with my older son. Why? Because I’m cheap. But now I can’t see, so it was off to my eye exam On My Day Off nonetheless. New doctor. High hopes.
Thing started off on the wrong foot when, regardless of my appointment, they took a walk in first because “he was here earlier today.” But fine, no bother. I’m patient.
When it was finally my turn, the doctor-who may have been younger than me-tried to make awkward conversation. I mean, it was bad. Is this your first time here? Where are you from? How old are your kids? It was like a blind date from hell.
The right eye went well. Slow, but well.
Then my left eye. Oh, my left eye. My poor left eye and its lack of adequate vision. I noticed that it was taking a pretty long time. I mean, we were up to “number nine? Or number ten?”. Finally she literally shoved the lens machine thing away and snapped, “you need to take a break.”
Whoa.
So after some awkward silence, she resumed the exam. We were back up to nine and ten. She rechecked my right eye. She checked both eyes together. She checked Lefty alone. Then she declared, “this is making me mad.”
I’ve always wondered what happens if you guess the wrong lens. I always assumed it was just glasses with the wrong prescription. Nope. Apparently you just piss the doctor off and they deem your eyeball beyond the stage where it an be helped. She informed me, “I’m cutting you off here. This is out of control.”
Seriously? It’s not like my eyeball and I were out drinking tequila and debating driving home instead of taking the bus. We were innocent bystanders.
At this point, she rummaged though a closet and pulled out my new trial contacts. She said, “Take as much time as you need.” As I wasn’t performing brain surgery, I popped the contacts in and literally followed her to the front. She proceeded to ignore me for several minutes and then handed me my file. “Women’s glasses are on the right.”
Awkward.
On a positive note, my contacts are amazing and I can see insanely clear. I hadn’t realized just how bad my eyes were. I actually look forward to getting my new glasses. And yes, even after potentially the worst eye exam ever, I still got glasses there. Here’s why: I wasn’t about to suffer through all that and leave empty handed. Screw that. I’m a sucker for a good deal and blind as a bat. Give me my damn glasses.
And in a final moment of humiliating horror, the sales lady told me I couldn’t get the frames I wanted because they didn’t feel comfortable putting lenses of my “strength” in them. Seriously, someone needs to slap a sign on the apparent hump on my back that declares “too blind to live.”
And the speech on my apparent risk of retinal detachment due to my “severe” nearsightedness was only icing on the cake.
So here’s to you, awesome eye doctors establishment. You may have won today. But my “maddening” eyeballs and I will be taking our future business elsewhere.
