Objects on Retinas Are Not As They Appear

How fitting, upon climbing out of T-Hoe on the optometrist's parking lot, that The Pony looked across the divided highway and read from the side of a ministerial alliance thrift shop: "Greater Backroads Area Rapist Association." I believe his appointment was a bit overdue.

This is the boy who thought a piece of blanket in the road was a puppy. I did not sense anything amiss. After all, his very own mother mistook a sewer vent pipe for a Grecian urn/Ming vase. And a spot of bird doodoo on the windshield for an insect hitching a 30-mile ride. Nothing to see here. With much squinting on both our parts, we deduced that we were looking at a building advertising the Baptist Association. Whew!

The Pony has new glasses on order. We can't just put new lenses in his old frames, because, well, he sees the rapist association WITH his glasses. Amazing how the new glasses will arrive in 7-10 days. The precise amount of time it takes a personal check to clear. Funny, that.

I took The Pony on a wild goose chase to get some fish for lunch. He was wearing those wrap-around black glasses to protect the enormous windows to his soul. I had offered to lead him to water and try to make him drink--no, I had offered to lead him to T-Hoe so he didn't have to risk burning out his retinas in direct sunlight. He declined, preferring the Frankenstein walk to use his arms, both with previously broken elbows, as buffers. We drove along the outer road in a populated area. The Pony squealed, "Look! Deer!" Of course I thought he must be seeing lawn ornaments. Imagine my surprise when I glanced out my side window and saw a white flagging tail bounding across a lawn. Town deer! Who woulda thunk The Pony would notice? The more time wore on, the more it seemed that the dilation actually sharpened his vision.

We had some errands to run before and after the appointment, one of them being to drop a package from Genius into a UPS drop-off box. He told us exactly where to find it. I pulled in beside it, and wondered when UPS had changed their Big Brown colors to purple, orange, and white. Um...that would be NEVER. Because the box Genius had steered us to was a FedEx box. Not recommended for filling with a package bearing a UPS shipping label.

The Pony searched for another location, using my phone. We looked. Craned our necks. Didn't see the other UPS boxes. The Pony swore that there was one in downtown Backroads, on the parking lot of the old license office location, which we passed every morning and evening. Huh. I didn't remember seeing it. So I figured The Pony might be confused. We called my mom to ask about the streets. She hung up and got out her phone book, then called us back. We still didn't see them, until she found out that the social security office was directly next door to the UPS box. Then I spotted it. Brown, no less. Even with his dilated eyes, The Pony jumped out and read that it was, indeed, active, with pick-up at 3:00 p.m.

On the way home, through Backroads downtown to get my 44 oz. Diet Coke, we passed the old license office building. There was a UPS drop-off box, all drive-uppy and waiting, where we could have unloaded that package.

For some reason, I had doubted The Pony's perception.