Trina Machacek: The eyes have it

It’s time for me to go to the eye doctor. It’s been a while, maybe five or six years since I have gone in to have my eyeballs checked out. Probably wouldn’t go now except I fell on my silly face out in the yard over three years ago and my glasses got scratched. Not scratched in my line of view. The silly lines are off to the outside of the right lens. But. Yes, a scratched up “but.”

I have recently noticed a few people looking at my glasses funny. You know like you might do when you see someone wearing glasses that are smeared and cloudy and you want to take them off their face to clean them. I would bet a nickel we have noticed glasses like that along the way. Well, mine are at that stage so an appointment is set for this month.

Going to the eye doctor is one of those things I put off. I get a tad frustrated when he says, “Is this better?” Before I answer he says, “Or is this?” Click, click “or this?” Come on I can’t see the chart, make the decision, and answer as fast as he clickity clicks the machine squished up to my face. It was so much easier when I would just point my hand in the direction of the HUGE “E” on the eye chart.

I have a more mature plan for my upcoming visit. Actually, I feel sorry for him this time. I am going to be more assertive and say, “Hold up a sec doc!” Maybe I’ll just sit quietly as he clicks his eyeball magic machine. Wait, me quiet? Funny.

I’ve seen TV commercials touting eye exams and two pairs of glasses for $89.99. Man, the last time I went to the eye doctor and got glasses the check I wrote was a bit north of $650. Not this time. Nope. Even with the rows of cute frames winking at me after the exam. Nope. I am taking one of the six pair I have accumulated over the years. I am in the process of choosing which ones I will have new lenses put in.

I’m one of those who perch my glasses on my head. I think they make me look more writerly with them keeping watch up there. Yes, even though the eyeglass selling ladies in the doctor’s office have told me many times to not put them up there. Knowing my eyes are important and that my eye doctor is truly running a business, I’m still going to see if I can get out of there spending a lot closer to the $89.99 than that $650 figure.

I didn’t get glasses until after I popped over the 40-year hill. I don’t think I needed them. I think it was more of a fashion statement. My other half needed new glasses and I had never had an eye exam, so he talked me into getting checked out too.

He really needed glasses. All his life. However, he didn’t get his first pair until he was in the fifth grade. He told me when he was finally taken to an eye doctor and was truly able to see things it was like the whole world opened up. He couldn’t believe what he was not seeing until he walked out of the eye doctor’s office and looked out across the street where there was a park. The trees were in perfect view and then going down steps outside the office put him a little off balance with the new bifocals. It must have been amazing.

He then told me of being able to see in the classroom. Seeing corrugates in the fields as he drove tractor. The best was that he could see so clearly when he would weld. He went on to be a self-taught master machinist and so much more. Oh, but the coolest thing he could, see? Well besides me!

We scraped enough money to go to Hawaii one year long ago. We went to a dive shop, Snorkel Bob’s, to rent snorkel equipment. We’d been told that if you go to Hawaii and don’t look under the water you are missing half the trip. So snorkeling was in our sights. HAHA. We talked about how his glasses would fit with the masks we would need with snorkels and fins. Something I hadn’t even considered.

The coolest thing for my other half was that Snorkel Bob offered magnified lenses on the goggles we rented. So even without his glasses he still saw the undersea magic of Hawaii. You never know how things affect another person’s world until you see it through their eyes. Wink, wink.

Trina Machacek lives in Eureka. Her books are available wherever you buy books or email her at itybytrina@yahoo.com to buy a signed copy.