Visited the eye doctor this morning. Three years since the last exam. I’ve had to squint to read the wall menus at Starbucks and Panera Bread; the lettering keeps getting lighter and lighter. So it was time. Or past time. I’ve been intending to set up an appointment since November.

Every time I get a checkup, I feel like I’ve waited too long. And yet, every time, the doctor tells me, “Well, you have a little change, but not much.” That irks me. I KNOW there’s a big change. They are MY eyes. I can TELL. (I will now stop shouting at you. I apologize. You didn’t do anything to me.)

I don’t trust that machine, the one where you play the game, “Which is better, A or B?” Well, it’s not always that easy. I’m sure that I gave the wrong answers, thereby resulting in his diagnosis of only minor change. He wants an A or B answer, and I keep wanting to qualify it–B is lighter/darker, a bit blurry, I’m seeing double, that might be an E or an H, but I think it’s an E. The doctor doesn’t want to hear stuff like that. He wants a definitive answer, so he can go on to slides C and D (which are not much different).

I believe the doctor, who is nearing retirement age, just makes assumptions about what I need based on having done such exams thousands of times. So we play the game for a while, he writes out a prescription, and he tells me to come back in a couple of years. And I’m left thinking, “I know I should have told him A. I’m so STUPID!”

As I write, I’m having trouble focusing on the computer screen, thanks to those dastardly drops he puts in my eyes.