Peekaboo!

So yesterday found me sitting in an exam chair at Lenscrafters. I had used up the last of my contact lenses and discovered that the "insurance" the thieves at Cohen's Fashion Optical on 23rd St. pick your pockets for had lapsed as well. Since I had to pay full price anyway and I've finally had enough of feeling like I've been raped (in the bad way) every time I go to the optometrist, I decided to take advantage of the fact that a Lenscrafters had opened around the corner and go see them. Plus, it's been at least four or five years since I had an eye exam, and I've been getting some pretty bad headaches and noticing some eye strain, particularly when I spend several hours on the computer. So I was due.

They did a pretty fast and efficient work-up and a no nonsense eye exam as well. I think it helped that I knew my prescription numbers so she didn't have to jump around trying to get any baseline and went right to seeing how bad my eyes have become. Pretty bad, apparently. Well, that's an exaggeration. More correctly, it seems my eye muscles, like the rest of my middle aged body, have grown kind of tired and flabby.

I have old eyes.

It's not so much that my vision deteriorated further. My prescription was only changed for one eye. It's that when I switch quickly from looking across a crowded restaurant to check on the bar to having to pick out a check number from a computer generated waiter's check, my eyes are, for all intents and porpoises, slow to get with the program. The check numbers are blurry, and I'm finding I can't read them at all in dim lighting. The result is lots of turning up and down lights in the station and repositioning checks to catch the optimum viewing. Many times I just have the waiters read them to me. I pretend like I'm far too busy to take precious time away to actually read their checks. No one is buying it. Least of all me.

So after the aforementioned brusque but efficient exam and fitting, and a promise that I would return next week to check the fit and also be dilated (HOT!), I emerged with not only a new prescription and pair of contact lenses, but a brand new pair of reading glasses to wear at the same time as my lenses, to make up for the fact that my eyes are decrepit pieces of crap. The only nice part I've managed to find so far in all this is they look kind of cute on me. Also, I spent about 1/2 hour at my desk practicing peering incredulously over my reading glasses at the person I am talking to. In an effort to make myself seem erudite and exasperated at the intrusion. It's important to work your new props as quickly as possible in to your repertoire.

Because I may be old, but I'm still gay.