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I went to Florida last week to visit some family and friends. While there, I stopped by a few of my “stomping grounds,” which at my age have become my physician, dentist and, of course, my eye doctor.
I knew I needed the full battery of tests at the eye doctor, so I thought I’d get a “jump” on it prior to the exam. I ordered an eye chart online and studied it feverishly. I even crammed the night before I went to see him. I usually get some answers wrong so I was sure my memorization efforts would pay off. I had no idea those charts could be different, so I completely failed the eye chart test.
The only letter I got right was the big letter “E” at the very top. I was so embarrassed when I had to call the members of my senior study group and inform them the chart may be wrong since I made copies for everyone.
I had some time to kill while my eyes were being dialated, so I thought I’d catch up on a few text messages. Apparently, I hit send, not realizing my eyes had started changing.
I guess I thought I could beat it, kinda like trying to run across the tracks before the train hits you. Well, some texts ended up being inappropriate, and now I have a friend, a plumber and a banker no longer speaking to me.
To make matters worse, I found out my eye doctor has no sense of humor because when he walked back in, I had pretended to be dead with my eyes fixed and dilated. Chaos erupted when he screamed for the nurse to come in quickly with the cardio paddles. When he realized what I was doing, he gave me a dirty look and left for 10 minutes.
During the exam, he asked if I had seen any “floaters.” I stated that I hadn’t since I left the sheriff’s office and no longer worked near large bodies of water. I think it was at that point that he decided to double my bill.
He informed me that I had the beginnings of cataracts, which I assumed was just a K-9 disease since the only time I’d actually ever seen cataracts was as a child on my great-grandma’s poodle named Charmaine.
He put me in 3.0 readers. I was hoping to stay in 1.0 readers for the rest of my life like my great-grandfather. After researching his medical records, however, we realized he mistook 1.0 with 100.0 readers. Now I know why he was always screwing up his will revisions.
Finally, the doctor wanted to do a color-test, but with the world so sensitive these days, I declined the test not knowing if it was a setup.
At the end I was happy to be out of there, but I think the doctor was mad at me because he stated that he didn’t want to see me for two more years.
Anngee Quinones-Belian lives in Murphy. She loves humor and believes the world needs more of it. Email her at anngeeq@gmail.com.