My Eyes! My Eyes!
I am so blessed to have the world's worst pair of eyes. I have my parents to thank for that. Not that my eyes are disease ridden or anything. They just can't see anything other than blurred chaos on their own.

This morning I made a trip to the eye doctor, one of my least favorite places in the world. My doctor is one of the nicest people on the planet, as far as doctors go. Everyone in the office there is top-notch nice as can be. My eye problems and I, afterall, are paying to put their children through college. But many years of eye doctors and eye issues have made the eye doctor one of my lesser favorite things to do.

When I was five years old, my teacher noticed I squinted at the blackboard a lot. She called my parents, who took me to the eye doctor, and I was rewarded with my first pair of eyeglasses for my squinting efforts. Following came much ridiculing and name-calling among my peers. Four-Eyes, Glass-Face, and other such creativity.

By the fifth grade my eye doctor at the time discovered he could not keep up with the speed at which my eyesight deteriorated by using conventional, yet funny-looking and increasingly thick glasses. So it was decided I should become the youngest person ever at my elementary school to wear contact lenses, in an effort to slow down the poor eyesight madness. After a horrific visit to the doctor's office, during which the contact assistant person proceeded to jam contact lenses into my tiny fifth-grade eyeballs by coming at me from across the room with a lens on her index finger and aiming for my eye, I was quite the phenomenon back at school. The day before, I wore glasses and was made fun of. This day, I was glasses-free, and suddenly very cool for wearing contacts. Very blinky. But cool.

Today I still struggle with the contact lens hoopla, being too poor to afford that new-fangled Lasik mumbo jumbo. And since my eyeballs, as am I, are growing older and more tired by the day, I decided it's time to give my eyeballs a break from contact wear on occassion by upgrading the ancient eyeglasses I currently have, for a new, hip pair that I can wear in public. Without people going back to the pointing and laughing and name-calling.

Currently my glasses are only worn at night when I'm sure no one else is around to see the horror. You think Halloween scary is bad. You haven't seen me in my glasses, yet. By Thursday, I will be able to debut my new look, and my new, much relaxed and very thankful eyeballs.

However, I did have to endure the eye doctor visit today. The first few tests are fine, and kinda fun. Watch for the blinking squiggly line and press a button when you see it. No problem. Stare at a hot air balloon while some machine takes it in and out of focus as it makes weird noises. No problem. Pretty balloon.

Then they have me take out my contacts and read eye charts. They might as well turn off the lights and take a nap for a few minutes because without my glasses or contacts on, I can't see the chart at all, much less decipher any letters or numbers on it. At this stage in the poor eyesight game, squinting has lost all its power. And let me tell you, I have nearly superhero capabilities when it comes to squinting. Look out, George Costanza.

Today the assistant person handed me an eyechart card and told me to cover one eye and read the lowest line I could see. I held the card, covered an eye, and promptly asked her if I still had the card in my hand because I couldn't even see the card itself. I wasn't joking, but she didn't find it funny. I did.

The eyechart on the wall didn't fare much better. With some of my very best squinting techniques, I saw the big 'E'. But it was pretty much a lost cause after that.

Then she took me back to the first room we were in (I forgot to wear my running shoes, which would have been helpful because I literally spent my entire two hours there this morning traveling from room to room for different tests and lots of waiting. I should have packed a snack, too), and we did the stare at something else test. And then, the glaucoma test.

I hate the glaucoma test.

In my opinion, every time they blow a puff of air directly into my eyeball, I should get to flick the assistant person in the nose with my thumb and forefinger. It's only fair. And seriously, I think they just made that test up because it's funny to watch us jerk back as we get hit in the eye with the puff of air. I mean, she did my left eye twice today because the first one wasn't good enough, and I swear I heard her giggle both times. Do they really think we believe that shooting air at our poor little eyeballs tells them if we have glaucoma? I think not.

Anyway, the doctor checked me out and said I appear fine, except slightly blinder than the last time he saw me. Legally blind, if we want to get technical. But I just like to think of it as not as blind as my dad, but definitely blinder than say, your grandma.

I picked out some sweet new glasses, and thoroughly entertained the glasses helper guy as I tried on every pair of the kind I was looking for, and promptly asked him how sexy I looked. I narrowed it down to four frames that looked almost exactly alike, then left it up to him to give me his best opinion. Hopefully I don't look like a freak after I pick them up on Thursday and proceed to wear them more often than my contacts. I will blame the glasses helper guy.

Then came the worst part of all. The eye dilating brew-ha ha. They save that til last, because it's the worst. And they conveniently save it until after you've paid for everything, because the dilating proceeds to blind you worse than you already are, which could keep you from being able to find your money.

So they put these drops in my eye, which then proceed to blow up the pupils to maximum occupancy, and then the doctor shines bright lights at me while staring at my eyeballs through that scope-thingy. The point of this? I'm not sure. And certainly if it held any real merit they wouldn't wait to do this part until after they've done the bulk of the exam and let you pick out new glasses. Like they'd dilate your eyes, look in there, discover you've got a gigantic eye tumor that they couldn't see before when your eyes were normal size, and then break the news to you that the sexy glasses you just picked out and paid for will be totally useless to you in four days because tomorrow you need to have one eye removed. But, you can still pick out a sexy patch to cover up the gaping hole in your head, which thank goodness was discovered after we dilated your eyes!

I really think it's just another thing they make up to make us look silly so that they are thoroughly entertained. As I stumbled out of the office and into the sunlight wearing my new roll-up, gigantic safety sunglasses which they gave me 'for free', they are likely taking pictures to hang up and point and laugh at later. Good thing I parked the Jeep right in front, or I'd still be bumbling about in the parking lot looking for my car, whilst burning my retinas.

After a very slow, very treacherous, braille-ish drive in to work (I swear the sun is set on 'extra bright' today), and now that I'm stumbling around and into things at my office and freaking people out with my gigantic pupils, my suffering today will pay off in a few days when I can wear my new glasses and give my eyes a rest.

Interestingly enough, my new, hip, sexy, trendy brown-rimmed, square-ish glasses look remarkably like my very first pair of glasses when I was five years old.

I knew those things would come back in style someday. And this time, Four-Eyes will be cool.

C.T.