The Eyes Have It

There are certain key moments in life when you realise that age is making its mark upon you and that the passage of time is changing you irrevocably. Your first pubic hairs, that earliest experience of erectile dysfunction and, more noticeably, fading eyesight. For some teenagers, it could be all three at once.

After 3 days of screen glare and squinting from sunlight like a latter-day Dracula (and what a church that would be), I bit the bullet and booked an eye test.
“And when was your last eye test?” She asked sweetly.
“Er, can’t remember.” I replied, looking at the ceiling. At least, I think it was. 'Can’t remember' being a euphemism for ‘probably more than 15 years ago’.

Clearly, in my absence, it had all gone very hi-tech; even the form was digital. The place also performed hearing tests. I knew that because they had a massive ear on the wall. Either that or my eyes were really stuffed. Curiously, there was no giant eyeball on another wall, presumably so as not to scare children. And me.

We did the second set of tests first – I never found out why. Read the line, now the other eye; usual stuff. Then it was all reds and greens, before someone realised that the first tests hadn’t been done.

So I was whizzed off next door to test both my peripheral vision and my ability to click a button quickly. Good for the first and poor for the second. (Looks like I won't be joining the rebel army of the future, when the cyborgs take over - not unless they approach from the side.)

I also seemed to have a special head that the machine wouldn’t line up with properly. Unfortunately there was no wall with a giant head on it for that to be checked. Eventually we produced a couple of holiday snaps, one of each iris – a sort of ‘having a wonderful time, wish you were eye’.

Then it was quickly back next door, with me feeling a bit like a Crufts dog playing flyball.
“You will feel a slight puff of air," She said. "Just like this.”

And she proceeded to blow a whisper on my hand. Then they clamped me in and shot a bellows blast, right through my eye and into my skull cavity. By the third go, I’d reduced my leaps in the air from 8 feet down to about 2. And by the time we got to the left eye (which, incidentally, tests have shown is letting the side down a little), I was past caring.
“Blast that sucker.” I may have said.

Or more likely, thought it, while wincing. Still, it has taught me one way not to tease the cat any more.

There then followed a well-meaning but ultimately depressing lecture about how the lens of the eye becomes less flexible when you get old. I forgave her that as she was already wearing glasses herself.

In eye tests – and probably hearing tests too – we instinctively want to get a good result, not an accurate result. Even when I was trying out the comedy lenses and facial scaffolding, I was aware that part of me wanted to lie, just to get a clean sheet. Or maybe it would have looked just clean, close, up because I couldn’t read it clearly.

In the finish, I wound up with a prescription for 0.75 reading glasses, to help me read font size 5 close up without straining. And it turned out that the dry eyes I thought were glaucoma were actually down to the equivalent of eyelash dandruff! Probably weighing the buggers down. So I picked up some sterile wipes, said I’d think about the reading glasses and scuttled out of there.

My 30 minute appointment actually took an hour and five minutes but that may have been in the small print. And for all I know it could still be there.