A Lighter View
Passing the eye exam
By K.E.H. Stagg

June 17, 2010

My regular eye appointment is cause for amusement and befuddlement in equal measure. When the lights go off and the little scope comes within a butterfly’s wingspan of my face, I know the doctor is right behind the light. The fact that he is so invading my personal space is cause for great hilarity. I don’t know why this is funny, only that as the light comes right up to my eyeball and then retreats, I’m fighting a serious case of giggles that I either have to turn into a cough or bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing like a rabid hyena.

And then there’re those lines of letters. It may just be the office I go to, but you have to wonder what braniac came up with the selection. I mean, imagine that you were hard of hearing and had the bad luck to misread anything in the line: T-Z-V-B-D-C-G or: F-S-N-M-K-A-J. The corrections could go on for hours! “What? Did you say D-C-B?” “No, T, as in a drink.” “No, I don’t want a drink! I took the pledge, and haven’t touched a drop since.”

I hate getting the drops, too. The opthalmologist comments regularly on my fierce blink reflex as he tries to dilate my pupils. Having worn contacts for years, in that case I am always putting the soft plastic into my own eyes. It cracks me up that magazine racks have been placed in all the exam rooms. I have exactly 10 seconds before the drops booger up my vision, so I’m trapped wondering just what scandal is breaking in whatever show it is, since I neither recognize entire words nor faces by that point.

My handwriting isn’t the most legible even when my vision isn’t blurred, so why isn’t my co-pay due at the beginning of the appointment? It’s not like I’ve ever passed out mid-exam by succumbing to a laughing fit and had to cancel the remainder of the office visit. It just makes sense to request payment while I can still see what I’m doing.

But by the end, I’m practically blinded because my pupils have expanded to fill my entire eyeball. I am reduced to using my seeing eye feet to gingerly slide my way to my vehicle, hoping madly that no cars careen around the corner while my eyes are scrunched almost completely shut, squashing me like a bug.

When I finally manage to get myself home, I have a headache the size of the national deficit and am so exhausted from squinting that I feel as though I need a vacation to recover. The good part is knowing I won’t have to do this again for another year. If that’s not reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is!