EYE-SIGHT TEST AND NEW GLASSES: A GESTAPO-ESQUE INTERROGATION AND A PRECIPITOUS FALL IN PERSONAL WEALTH.

A sudden blast of air on the eyeballs, particularly when you have to keep them open is unpleasant to say the least. I dread this test to check the pressure in the eye balls. Tonometry  is a compulsory part of the routine eye-sight check up. 

The normal recommendation is to get one’s eyes checked every two years but I tend to postpone it as long as it is possible to get by comfortably with my existing pair of glasses. Apart from the horror of air blast, one also have to get through the refraction test to determine the power in the glasses one needs to see properly. The optician puts different lenses in the test frame and you have to read the letter chart in the front. The optician takes over the role of a Gestapo interrogator. “Do you see clearer with this one or the previous one?”  If you answer is “this one”, he/she seems happy and the test continues. The moment you say “not sure”. The optician cuts in “Ok Sir, just say if it is better or worse”. The demeanour of the interrogator changes for the worse.

 I do want to please him but I certainly do not want to have to live with glasses worse than one I already have. “Can you put the previous one back”? He does that a bit reluctantly. I look carefully on the board “no you were right the last one was better”.  He is vindicated and smiles. I note the return of Dr. Henry Jekyll.

This goes on for quite a while and finally we both are happy that it is over.  He writes a prescription and gives it to one of the girls in the main hall. “Celina will help you to choose the frame and the glasses”.  Celina is a Dispensing optician cum sales person. Now begins the most difficult part of choosing a frame. The choice is bewildering.  The ones that feel and look good to me are the ones that my wife does not like, or they are priced as if they are made of solid gold. The frames that pass this hurdle are rejected by Cellina because they are not suitable for the lenses prescribed for me. Back to the shop floor. After a bit more toing and froing  I finally settle for the frames with a much bigger price tag than what I had in mind. 

Now we sit in the office again and time to decide the type of lenses. Again hundreds of options, millions of combinations: monofocal, bifocal, verifocal, anti reflex, clear or tinged, UV filtering, photochromatic, thin or thick, glare reducing  etc. The price almost doubling at each step up. I go a few steps higher than the middle and slightly lower than the “best combination” offered by Celina. A Middle class habit, not veering far off from the centre.

She adds all up, the printer comes alive and an invoice is there for me to sign and pay.
The specs will be ready in two weeks for the final fittings.

“Thanks a lot, see you then” I almost sprint out of the shop.  In one hour I have taken more decisions than the UN security council takes in a year!

I sincerely hope these glasses fit me and last for a very long time.