Expostulations of an Eye Exam

You know, it's sort of weird that we'll pay a $15 co-pay to have someone put yellow eye drops in our eyes to numb them and make them feel like some little four year old smeared rubber cement in there. It's awkward to dab at your eyes and have a Kleenex come away with, not only the expected black mascara smudge, but also yellow tear stains as people across from you in the waiting room give you sympathetic looks like you have some unexplained eye disease. Under normal conditions, finding yellow tears in a tissue would result in screaming, "THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY EYE! IT'S DRIPPING PEE!" (and obviously, those darn Jr High kids are rubbing off on me- two years ago I wouldn't have even thought that!)

Also, it's sort of unnerving when you go to the eye doc's office that happens to adjoin the allergy center and you have to endure the crying/screaming of little kids as they get allergy shots (all while dabbing yellow stains from your eyes and feeling like if you close them they'll stick that way forever!). When the screaming starts, you look around the waiting room and see that everyone cringes and mouths to one another, "Poor kid," while thinking, "Thank goodness, I'm not in THAT room!"
*****
I am grateful though that 1) my eyes didn't have to be dilated this year and 2) the nurse doing the first eye exam didn't laugh when I could only read the card with TWO large letters on it once I took out my contacts (that was pretty sad!)