Just a little puff of air...

About a year ago, I went to the eye doctor because my contact lenses were running out. I had to get my prescription retested before he'd order new ones for me. Not-So-Fun Fact: Every time I go to the eye doctor, I am told that my prescription has gotten worse. I estimate that I'll be blind in about five more visits. It's probably because I spend too much time staring at the computer screen. It is now about that time that I'll have to bring myself back to the eye doctor to check things out... I only have a couple of months of lenses left.

It's around this time that I start to consider permanently switching to glasses.

In general, I would consider myself an excellent patient. I've never actually asked a doctor what makes a good patient (Dad?), but I imagine I have the qualities that doctors would look for in a patient. I am very prompt when arriving at appointments. I make an effort to be somewhat cheerful to all doctors and nurses (since I assume they often spend all day with people who would rather be somewhere else). I am good at following directions. I don't make sharp movements or loud noises around needles or other weird looking instruments that I don't know what they are. I don't ask stupid questions.

However, there is one thing that I HATE about going to the doctor -- not seeing a physician or the dentist, but the eye doctor -- and that's the glaucoma test.

In case you don't know what glaucoma test I'm referring to, it happens when you get to that station of the eye doctor where there's a series of chairs you have to sit in and look into a series of machines, and most of them you have no idea what they actually do, but with one of them, you know exactly what it does. And even though you know exactly what it does, the doctor or assistant tells you. "Now just rest your chin on the chinrest and look forward at the red dot; you will feel a little puff of air--"

Uh, no. This is the part where I do make a sharp movement away from the machine. If I am sitting on a swivel chair, I probably just slid to the back of the room, because listen up: I am absolutely NOT doing that. I would rather be blind for the rest of my life than feel that "little puff of air" being shot with a .22 caliber air gun into my eye. I am going to just close my eyes until you leave the room and then I'm going to walk out and never come back.

But that's not what happens. I think to myself, maybe it won't be so bad this time. Maybe this time, it will be a "little" puff of air, and I want want to throw a temper tantrum when I accidentally blink and have to do it again. So I slowly position my chin on the chinrest and squint my eyes in the general direction of the red dot in the machine that is humming like an automatic baseball launcher, my ears practically bleeding in anticipation. "Open your eyes a little wider," the doctor/assistant/torturer says. I open my eyelids, but I still can't look forward, so I hope I can get away with an off-in-the-distance stare slightly to the left. "Look right at the red dot." I can't. I can not look at the red dot. My eyes are watering. Maybe my tears will shield my eyes from this inhumane torture. I brace myself against the impending blow by digging my fingernails into the table. The eye-torturer waits. I finally look at the red dot. BOOM! An explosion of air into my eye practically throws me aback off of my chair. Finally, it's over.

"Okay, let's try that again. This time, don't blink. Look straight ahead at the red dot..."

Oh great.