The optician in question was a woman handling contact lens prescriptions, apparently getting one's eyes tested for glasses is not enough to tell which contact lens you need. As my sight has steadily got worse over the last year I have been having to wear my glasses more and more and I don't like the way they break up the consistency of my beautiful face. I'd also quite like to change my eye colour.
This is not arrogant, vain or childish as some people, who I have described my plans to have labelled it. Just a fact.
Shhhh. I don't care to hear your definition of fact.
I arrived for my appointment at 10:40 am and waited in the disinfectant smelling shop floor of the opticians. Unsurprisingly the walls were lined with racks of glasses displaying styles such as 'huge square Hipster glasses,' to 'patterned huge square Hipster glasses,' and even 'slightly smaller but still obnoxiously large Hipster glasses.' I heard one woman browsing the shops wears describe them as "nerd chic," although I am presuming she was trying to be ironic as anyone using this as a serious description of the shops wares would have to have been severely brain damaged.
Opticians' shops always make me slightly uncomfortable, I think it might be something to do with all the walls being lined with staring reflective gazes. Looking unerringly out, waiting for some poor person who has had their sight robbed by genetics, age, or too much time playing World of Warcraft, to try them on and then... BAM. They stick. Clasping the ears, temples and face like those monsters out of alien, except, instead of invoking tentacles and fear in the horrified on lookers they create an overwhelming sense of a terrible fashion sense and a pretentious plonker with no self-awareness.
Interestingly (in reference to my former comment) you can find same blank stares as the glasses gave me, in the audiences of any of the following movies:
Twilight
The Bratz Movie
Princess Diaries
Any film by Judd Apatow
Any film starring Taylor Lautner
Twilight
Transformers
Any film from the Big Momma series
I had been waiting about twenty minutes in the unnerving gaze of the glasses when I realised that the person I was meant to be seeing didn't seem to be calling me and I should probably check to make sure she knew I was here.
I went to desk to consult the receptionist.
"Excuse me, I've been waiting about twenty minutes and I haven't been called yet. Does she know I am waiting?"
The receptionist appeared to be playing angry birds on her phone.
"She's not arrived yet." She said without looking up.
"Err, could you possibly call her, I've got to get college this afternoon and I can't really be late so..."
I stopped because she had ceased playing her game and fixed me with a hate filled stare that could probably have pinned a pack rabid wolves in place with its intensity. I felt for a moment like all the refrigerators in the world had had their doors thrown open as the temperature plummeted.
"I'll just wait then." I said quickly, feeling the hairs on the back of neck rise - I imagine this is how small furry animals feel when confronted by a very deadly predator.
I went back to my seat and watched people try on lots of slightly different glasses over and over, nodding and commenting on their reflection to whomever was browsing with them, or the sales person who was expertly flattering them, as if each individual pair added a whole new dynamic.
Twenty minutes later my optician finally arrived.
She was fat, blond and American (although I didn't know this until she spoke). She wore glasses, which, as she was the contact lens woman, I took as a personal insult right then and there, not to mention her lateness. She waddled in, her face plastered with a happy grin, she was breathing hard as if she had been running, however I'm sure that simply getting out of bed would have caused her heart rate to rise so it didn't fool me as being a sign that she had been rushing to get to my appointment.
She saw me, glanced at the receptionist. Then waddled over. "Hi, hi, Dr. Van Dorff," she greeted me. "Lovely to meet you. Sorry I'm late. My daughter connie was ill. You know what its like having a three year old, well you probably don't actually, being a child yourself." (I'm twenty in case people haven't read my previous posts and I don't look particularly young for my age) "Very taxing, especially when they're ill, you can lose track of time."
"Yes." I said, trying to convey as much disapproval as possible while still remaining agreeable.
"Lets get straight to it then!" She flicked her hair and started off towards her office at the back of the shop. After an awkward moment when she got stuck in the door frame we made it into her office.
"I used to have an office to the first floor," She laughed, collapsing into her office chair. "Now that would cause problems. I don't know how anyone manages to get up those things."
"You live in a bungalow then?" I asked politely.
"Oh no! A three floor house."
"Then how-"
"We had an elevator installed a few years back. It's been wonderful. We weren't able to use the upper rooms of the house before that, it was such a waste, but now everything is in use!"
I briefly imagine, Dr. Van Dorff with her family, huddling together on the bottom floor of the house, unable to ascend the stares without greasing up the walls and banister. The upper floors dusty and dirty, cobwebbed and damp full of blank walls and unfurnished rooms which the family could never use or visit.
"Anyway," I said. "Can we get on, I need to be in college for a meeting this afternoon."
"Yes, yes. So what sort of contact lenses were you looking for? Long term hard wearing or one day use?" She asked.
"I-"
BLING BLONG BLOOP!
Her phone made a series of loud screeching and beeping sounds, vibrating around on the desk where she had placed it moments before. She reached for it immediately. I stupidly assumed she was going to turn it off. Instead she picked it up clicking a few buttons. She smiled. Then laughed.
"My daughters making fairy cakes," she said in way of explanation. "Sorry, you were saying?"
"I-"
BLING BLONG BLOOP!
Again she checked the phone. "Aww look." She shoved the phone in my face. "Pictures!" What I saw, with the phone literally an inch from my face, was an indistinct blur of brown and pink mixed with what could possibly have been a small girl in red pajamas. She jerked the phone away and started to message back.
"As I was saying," I started. "In answer to you question before. I was looking for one day use lenses but I also wanted to check for longer use lenses in case the one day use ones cause my eyes problems as I know they are made of different material that has a higher rate of allergies associated with it."
As I said this she nodded still messaging on her phone all the while going "Mmm." "Yes." "Mmm," in what she probably thought was an attentive and knowing manner.
"Are you listening to me!?" I asked. I think I was in shock of her rudeness at this point.
"Of course. So you want long-term lenses to start with?"
"N-"
She interrupted "Good. I can fit you with those. Are you considering coloring?"
"Possib-"
BRIIIIIIING! BRIIIIIIING!
Her office phone went this time. Interrupting me again.
She picked it up with no hesitation.
"Hello...? No I'm with a client at the moment."
I had to admit that this sounded slightly more professional. Instead of hanging up as I was expecting, she went to call the person on the other end of the line "snugglepuss."
"Yes I got the pictures!" She trilled as if talking to a baby. "There lovely, yes I know snugglepuss I love them so much, your doing such good work."
"Your child?" I asked in a flat tone.
"No. That was my husband."
I tried not to vomit at this point.
I considered pointing out that she called her husband "snugglepuss," and talked to him in a voice most mothers reserve for very young children, but I realised it would be pointless. In the moment of clarity that this realisation brought I saw Dr. Van Dorff with her husband eskimo kissing at their marriage ceremony dressed in giant cuddly bear suits, unable to properly kiss over their huge stomachs. The fact that they had a child mystified me somewhat.
It also came to me that this appointment was completely unacceptable and I had had enough.
"This is completely unacceptable," I said angrily. "And I've had enough. You were forty minutes late for my appointment, you've been texting your sick child since my appointment started and accepting calls from your husband when you should be focussing on me, your client."
She looked taken aback for a moment and then she nodded gravely. "Your right." She agreed.
"I am?" I said, slightly surprised, I had been expecting someone as obviously delusional as her to put up a fight.
"Unacceptable that you came to this appointment at all considering the state my gorgeous daughter is in."
She squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. "I understand you know," she continued. "We all make mistakes. You probably didn't mean to drag me here, make me battle through all the traffic to get to this appointment and be separated from my baby in her hour of she need." She began to wail.
"Wait wait wait." I began.
"Oh. You've seen the error of your ways. I Know!" She gasped. She then lunged grabbing me in a bear hug. I think I felt my lungs flex slightly under the pressure. Perhaps she was so big she had her only special sort of gravity that compressed any object in her immediate vicinity. Whatever it was it hurt and she wasn't letting go.
She cried into my shoulder "I forgive you! Don't worry. I'll explain to my husband and my daughter, we'll all forgive."
She finally released me. Sitting back and nodding to herself. "Unacceptable indeed. I should go shouldn't I?"
"Erm. I'm not sur-"
"Of course I should go! My baby needs me." She shouted. She picked up her bag and phone in one gargantuan sweep of her arms and waddled at high speed through the door, damaging its structural integrity considerably in the process. She poked her head back in a few moment later.
"I don't know how long I'll be gone. It's probably best you make an appointment with one of the other opticians." She said as if as an after thought.
She went.
Then her heard appeared again "Oh and you could send a fruit basket to my house, or some cookies or something to show you're really sorry. Perhaps not fruit, but something to eat, we do like our food in our house, though you'd never know it. Get my address from Lindsey. And don't worry you didn't do that much harm, you don't have to feel too guilty."
And then she was gone.
I sat disbelieving in the office for a few moments, then stood up as if in a daze and walked out.
After taking out several life insurance policies I managed to pluck up the courage to approach the receptionist to make another appointment at a later with a different optician.
No comments:
Post a Comment