Defective

It's expensive having shitty defective eyes.

I went for my eye test today -  only a year overdue, oops - and what a polava it was. They test you with all these lights and dots and flashing things and puffs of air in your eyes and it feels like a test that you're rapidly failing. How many lights did you see? Where were they in terms of clock positions? (Man it's difficult to think quickly about that.) Do you see any green lights? (Yes. No. Ahh, I think so.) It's all super fast and you have to think so speedily, half the time I was only processing one as she's gone on to the next one. (Just realised this makes me seem slow and slightly thick.)

So then, after this you are passed to the actual optician - before being told I have to repeat one of the tests later. Great - for charts and weird glasses. Then it's more questions and lights and tests and indecision. Which is clearer, the red or green? (As soon as you say green, convincingly, you wonder if it was red.) Which dots are clearer? Can you read the top line? Okay, so I started reading the top line and could barely make out anything on the second line, but then she changed the chart and I thought, what the hell, my eyes must be so bad I'm seeing backwards letters. Then she revealed they were actually numbers. Ha ha. Glad she told me. I thought that 3 was a backwards E.

It's only later when they get you to put on your current glasses and then add the new prescription, that you realise how much your eyes have further deteriorated. I re-did the field vision test and passed with flying colours this time, thank god. Though I'm not sure what happens when you don't. Naughty corner? Smacked wrist? And then came the new glasses spiel.

I made it pretty darn clear that I was keeping the same frames, my late 1950's vintage frames that are the most beautiful frames in the world. But still, they tried to persuade me to go for contact lenses, despite me making it perfectly clear I wouldn't be putting things in my eyes. Just take no for an answer, please! And they persuaded me to try a few of their frames, but it's no use, I'm a creature of habit, these frames suit me and they make all other frames pale into insignificance. Bless her though, the lady was patient and very sweet. She knew she was on to a loser there.

Unfortunately, it's costs more than most of the designer glasses that are buy one get one free, just to get lenses done on POF (patients' own frames). Then they offer you all these coatings and thinner lenses and something else and fairies will lick them clean and some other bumpf, and you're just left sat there confused, not quite sure what you've paid for, with a significant hole in the bank balance. I had to actually get rid of one of the coatings because it was working out more than I'd paid for my vintage glasses in the first place, and that included lenses when I bought them. Ridiculous! But even worse is that I am now glasses-less until next week. A freakin' week! I'm sure Specsavers used to do 'em in an hour. But not Boots. That is such a long time to be without them. I miss them already. But it would have cost a further £30 to have them done any quicker and that might have been 5 days instead of 7. Nah, I'll just wait thanks.

So if I'm seeing you, or attempting to see you in the next week, bare with me. If you are far away, I will not see you until you are much closer and I will be unable to read signs, bus numbers, train times or words on a cinema screen. The joys. I know I should get a spare pair, but money does not come out of my ass, unfortunately, and as I had to keep reminding them, it's really expensive to have defective eyes, especially when you're self-employed. Thankfully, I'm mostly on half term break this week. I only have a couple of babysitting things and one more class to teach, so I should be able to muddle through. If you see me squinting, you know why.

Oh, finally a little tit bit for Monday afternoon, a snatch of overheard conversation on the bus:
Oh hi, yeah, I need to book a bikini wax. 
Ha ha. Made me cringe and inner giggle. Is that really something you want overhearing on a bus?

Anyhoo, to those of you with defective eyes, I salute you. To those of you with perfect eyes, I scowl at you in pure jealousy, and to anyone who has seen Final Destination 5 before an eye test, they will understand my recoil from some of the red lights.

Rants