Last week, I went to the optometrist, since I am stuck in Houston and my contacts make my eyes feel like the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band danced a gig on my orbital surface. ( I don’t, in fact, believe that NGDB would do that, as I see them as being very upstanding gentlemen of average size and would not assault a fan in such a way.) In fact, I have noticed that my contacts have started bothering me to the point that I have developed a tic from trying to squint my eyes into comfort. I may have also developed a small case of voluntary Tourette’s from the pain of my eyeballs.
The visit started normally enough, with that standard battery of tests that I don’t actually believe do anything but make your eyes water. Gotta get that insurance money somehow, I suppose.
So we moved steadily down the line, until we get to that machine that shoots a gale-force wind through your eyeball, into your brain. I’m sure you know that one. In truth, I believe it’s a test developed by the government to screen citizens to be part of the elite military branches. It’s a battle of wills to keep your eye open, knowing that it will soon be violated. Violated in an extreme way. That is a test of character, my friend.
In any case, my character sucks as well as my readings from the air-poof machine. So she did it 4 more times. FOUR. That’s a total of six eye poofs that left my eyelids stuck to my eyeballs post examination.
After the normal reading of letters from the screen (which, by the way, I suck at. Not letters. I know those. Seeing them, as they wiggle around and lose their shape is the challenge.), she reminded me that I should never drive without glasses or contacts as I would be a public safety hazard. Thanks Doc. She explained that the air-poof tortur test is for a glaucoma reading. Normal is somewhere between 15-21. I had an average score of 29. What can I say, I’m an overachiever. She signed me up for a glaucoma clinic to see if I would soon be blind (‘ed by the light. Wrapped up like a douche duke er… deuce, another rrmmer in the night).
Conversation with my mom post appointment:
“Do we have any family history with glaucoma?”
“No honey, we don’t.” (That was my version of this conversation. She said a whole bunch of nice things after that because my mother is super sweet, and loquacious, and utterly unlike me.)
“We have come to another opportunity for you to reveal that I am actually adopted. Go ahead.”
“No matter how much you hope, you’re still not adopted”
(This would also be the point that I must tell you that my childhood dawg Dewey was put down a few weeks ago because he had glaucoma and needed to have his eyes removed or be brought to that giant dawg-park-in-the-sky. I encouraged my mom to put him down. Dewey was a vindictive dawg and I feel has had a paw in this whole ordeal. Karmically speaking, of course. I know you’re not supposed to talk about the dead, but Dewey was kind of an a-hole.)
So today, I went to the glaucoma testing and did the eye-poof test (again. 6 more times again, actually). Then I went and did other fancy tests that I don’t actually believe do anything. Including one used a remote control joystick thingy to move my head once it was in the machine. This would be the time to tell you that my eye tech guy looked like Fat Albert and clearly has never played video games because I am pretty sure he’s done permanent damage to my neck.
That machine did something and took a while to do whatever it was supposedly doing. Then we moved over to this machine:
It looks like the inside of the Death Star. I was given a clicker and told to click whenever I saw a blinky light. Then Fat Albert started pushing buttons (with my head in the headholder thingys). Hard. And my brain rattled along with him as he put in whatever secret code made the blinky light activate. I was supposed to blink when the orange light faded out. It never faded out. And the test kept on going. Finally F.A. told me to take a break and he went and got a tech friend. By the way, I was wearing an eye patch. I think it’s important for you to know that. Did you wear an eye patch and have your brain radiated today?
So the tech guy came in and punched things into my brain. I mean, the machine. Apparently the seven minutes of testing I had just gone through were unnecessary and we were going to start over. Just click when you see the lights.
I have no hand eye coordination.
The optometrist told me I failed the blinky light test. I also failed my glaucoma test, as I fail to have glaucoma. Instead of glaucoma, I just have “truly abnormally thick corneas”. Did she call me fat?
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