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I didn’t start wearing glasses until my early forties. Maybe if I’d started younger, the opticians wouldn’t be such a big deal. It would be more a part of the fabric of my life and I’d be more at ease. Perhaps it’s like skiing or learning languages, it’s best to start really young. As it is, if I had to go to the opticians more than once every two years, I’d consider having my eyes out. Like a bad tooth. I find it just awful. Because I’m suspicious at every point.
I go to a well-known chain of opticians. I should probably go to my local, independent one but I’m very susceptible to advertising so I feel like I have to use this particular company.
In this chain, before you see the optician, you do some pre-test tests with a member of staff who is not an optician. Even though these tests involve shooting air and intensely bright lights into my eye. I can’t help but feel there’s far more responsibility involved here than just showing me some letters and that I’d quite like the fully trained expert to do this bit. The only way I can soothe myself is thinking of the weird job description of this assistant: Greeting customers, booking appointments, helping customers choose frames, taking payments and shooting violent bursts of air and intensely bright lights into customers’ eyes.
The machine that blasts air onto the eyeballs is the most concerning to me. I’m not 100% convinced that there’s any real purpose to it. I’ve never looked into it but a bit of me suspects all the opticians got together and conjured it up as a joke because they think it’s funny to puff air in our eyes and see how much we flinch. And depending on how much they don’t like you, they dial it up from light breeze to moderate gale to hurricane. And I always seem to get hurricane.
I do not cope well with this air. I don’t so much flinch as violently shudder. I’m always jolting about so much that they have to keep doing it. I say to myself over and over, “It’s coming, it’s coming, get ready, you are a rock, you are a rock, you are solid, unmoving rock, it’s coming now,” and I still vigorously convulse. It was once so bad that I sought some reassurance and asked the assistant, “Am I flinching a normal amount?” She chose to sidestep this by answering with, “Don’t worry, it’s nearly done.” This wasn’t at all reassuring.
But the fact that they are not an actual optician makes me even less likely to question their approach. I don’t want to be belittling them and drawing attention to their lesser skills and qualifications. A light flash from a machine once stayed in my vision for at least a minute. I was beginning to accept this was my new kind of sight. But obviously, I didn’t say a word. There would have to be actual flames coming out of my eyes for me to mention it.
It’s no easier with the actual optician, although slightly less terrifying. It saddens me that there’s a lot less reading those lines of letters out now. That bit I was fine with. It felt like safe, familiar territory. I’ve actually wondered if they’ve moved on so much in the world of eye testing that those lines of letters are a bit redundant but they do it for a few seconds just to make everyone feel better and safe and happy.
There’s much more looking at dots now. They show you two pictures of dots and ask which is clearer and I’m paranoid that the optician is trying to trick me and one day they’ll just shout, “You’re wrong! They’re all the same! You’re a liar!”
I can never see the difference and then I think it must be my fault and that I’m really annoying my optician by making the test longer than it should be with all my, “Can I just see number one again?” Like I’m that person in a restaurant dithering over what to order even though the waiter has been standing there for about 10 minutes. I honestly don’t think my visual memory is good enough for these tests. How am I supposed to remember how clear the circles were a whole second before?
The best optician I ever had was my most recent one and after every single answer I gave she said, “Good!” Like I was right. I’d given the correct answer and was doing this amazing job and was now on the shortlist for ‘Opticians’ Patient of the Year’.
Sometimes, rather than admitting I don’t know, I start making up answers even though this almost certainly means I’ll get the wrong prescription, which will deteriorate my vision further and give me terrible migraines and then I will eventually have to have my eyes out. So maybe it’s no bad thing.
Ha! I am so relieved to read this, I entirely don't trust my optician and feel like I need to generate a word of mouth recommendation from some one who I trust who trusts theirs. Between us, do we not actually KNOW an optician? If not, why not?? How do we befriend an optician...where should be socialise to find one organically?
Haha that’s funny!! I have the exact same thing with the dots - I never know which one is clearer and have to keep asking to see them again. Some of them look the same to me but I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be the right answer so I end up guessing. I asked my non drifter husband if he had the same problem, and he said no!! That is probably why I can’t see properly out of my old peoples varifocal lenses!!