I had it saved as a draft while I worked it out. here ya go:
I was walking with purpose, on my way to Spectacles for my first ever eye doctor's appointment yesterday when I saw myself in the mirror-like window of the recently closed Freshii. It was an unexpected viewing and as panic inducing as accidentally activating Facetime. Do you hate when that happens too? I looked about as graceful and fluid as the un-lubed Tin Man when I made eye contact with myself. I was in the process of navigating a high curb and pivoting left. Movements like that tend to involve my total torso as my spine and neck are mostly fused due to the toll AS took on me through the years. This loss of functional mobility bums me out more than I like to admit and I was losing the battle of positive self esteem as I entered the office for my appointment.
The doctor's office/retail store was really nice and modern except for the old school Charles Swindoll essay on "Attitude." One of my first bosses had this same print in their office. It irked me every time I read it even though I admit the message is true. Anyhoo, the first girl was young, probably 25ish, and in purple scrubs. Cute too in a puffy way. Really nice skin. She was the counter girl and gave me the new patient paperwork to fill out. When I was done and handed it back to her she was on the phone but acknowledged me with a smile and gave me a little wink. The wink was spectacular and my spirits immediately lifted. I'd go so far to say it sent a chill throughout my entire body and I would have paid her a lot of money to position herself in different areas of the store and wink at me all day long. More chicks should wink at me throughout the day.
I was pretty quickly escorted to phase 2 where an older, sassy lil' butterball who was most likely a non-winker ran a battery of tests on my eyes. All of the tests sucked. One was where you held a clicker and clicked every time you thought you saw a dancing white fleck on the screen. After a while it just had a hypnotic effect on me where I would zone out and forget what I was there for. She was kind of gruff at first but I was still buoyed by the wink, and I employed the tactic of acting as though lady 2 was very beautiful, or at least like I hadn't noticed she was old and overweight. Whatever I had done it had worked and she was nice as pie for the remaining two eye tests. When she was done with the final stage I had to return an eye patch to her and when she took it she gave my hand a little squeeze before letting go. "That's nice, that little squeeze," I said, which just slipped right out of my mouth. "It's what we do in prayer group, just before the prayer is over," she explained, "a little something extra."
I had not been waiting that long at all in Room #3 when in came the optometrist herself. She had a really good look-age appropriate silver hair with a cool cut and stylish glasses. When I stood to greet her with a handshake I had forgotten my phone was in my lap and it fell to the floor. Hate when I drop stuff because I cannot just bend over and pick things up anymore; rather I have to get on my knees. It's really demoralizing. She swooped in without hesitation and handed it right back to me. I felt warm fuzzies for her at once. "Having a hard go of it lately," she asked. "Apparently I got old and am losing my sight," I replied. She began positioning my head towards the eye chart machine and said something about age. My neck was sensitive to her manipulations. She followed up with "Sometimes these things are blessings in disguise." I was beginning to put two and two together on who the office Swindoll fan was, but instead of getting ticked I decided to play on the one string I had like ol' Chuck would do. I chose a better attitude. "When one door opens, another closes," I shot back. She was done bantering with me though and had gotten back to work. Dang it. You never want to be the last one quipping.
On a positive note she told me my distance vision was better than 20/20 and I was fine with using the readers I had been buying from Walgreen's. She did suggest some bifocals so I could wear them around for certain situations and not have to carry around readers and take them off and on. It sounded like a good plan and she said insurance would cover most of it so I was sold. This lead me back to lady 2 who personally selected a snazzy pair of frames she said looked great on me. Lady 2 led me back to the winker who was placing the order for the prescription and tallying up my total. I was floored when she told me it would be $600. I must have really shitty insurance. At any rate, I try to make it my policy to act nonplussed about the cost of things around women. I don't think I pulled it of though and when I stated if it was all the same I would just stick to my twenty dollar 1.75s and that she could cancel my order she did not respond with a going away wink.
As I was walking out the winker and lady 2 told me to have a nice day and I did kind of a robot dance half body turn to wave an acknowledgement. I remembered what the optometrist had said when I told her apparently I was getting old-- it was "old age isn't for wimps". Isn't that the truth.
|