I Can See Clearly Now But the Pain Ain't Gone

Ooh! Ooh ooh! Mr. Kotter Val's loyal readers!

I have my new bifocals! Yes, they've been a long time coming. If you count the date they were ordered, November 15th, to the day I was notified to pick them up, December 18th, and add them up--I was only without my bifocals for a mere 33 days. Surely anybody can go without reading for that amount of time, right? Who cares whether a teacher can calculate grades? Who cares whether a wife can write out checks to pay bills? Who cares if a medicated individual can read the labels on the pill bottles? Obviously, the answer is: NOT the employees of The Charlatans Optical Delusions Emporium and Professional Prevaricators Shoppe.

Good thing Val is a crafty wench with a penchant for hoarding, and had a pair of two-year-old bifocals on hand to tide her over.

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Oh, come on. Who am I kidding? There is no good news, silly! There is only bad news and not-quite-as-bad news. The not-quite-as-bad news is that I can see fairly well with them now, and I got a free hard case (which looks like it's for kids' glasses, and has a sticky mark like somebody peeled off the label and decided they didn't want it). The bad news is that the pain-in-my-rumpus, tooth-sucking, keyboard-pounding, not-listening hag who caused me the majority of my seven trips back to that office had to get in the last word upon pick-up.

I KNOW! Aren't you simply incensed for me?

I went to pick them up after school and a rendezvous with my best old teaching buddy, Mabel. The  Charlatans Optical Delusions Emporium and Professional Prevaricators Shoppe closes at 5:00. I arrived at 4:50. When I dared pass through their unlocked portal, I was greeted with dead-eyed stares from the two counter Cerberuses whose job it is to discourage repeat customers. "What can I do for you?" snarled the right-hand Cerberus.

"I got a call that my glasses are ready."

"Sit over there and someone will be with you."

Huh. You might think some further information might be necessary. A customer's name, perhaps. In order to dole out the proper pair of glasses. But wait! Maybe that's the problem! All glasses are generic, so nobody can see out of them. Yeah. That explains a lot.

I had no desire to sit down, having just sat on my ample duff chatting with Mabel until T-Hoe's warm leather duff-receptacle was begging for mercy. So I headed for the corral where they herded me, and stood compliantly behind a chair. I was almost bowled over by a large man of questionable hairstyle wearing baby-blue scrubs and carrying a large, see-through trash bag full of...well...visible trash. "Oh. Excuse me." He headed past me and toward the inner sanctum. About the room, like so many catatonic nighttime rainwalkers in the original Halloween, were other folks who had come to get their glasses. I'd say there were at least five. Which explained why the parking lot was so full. They were being fitted, outwitted, and coaxed into believing that of course they couldn't see clearly, because their eyes needed to adjust to the new glasses.

"Ma'am?" Trash Man was standing behind the counter, beckoning to me! How did he know which glasses were mine? He didn't know my name. Nobody had asked. I figure they labeled me as DIFFICULT in my file, and had tacked up a copy of my driver's license photo behind the counter, with a bonus for the person who could make me disappear permanently. "Let me get you a chair."

"No. I don't need a chair. The frames are my old ones. All I need to do is look through them to see if I can see."

THEN IT HAPPENED!

Pain-in-My-Rumpus, Tooth-Sucking, Keyboard-Pounding, Not-Listening Hag walked by behind me. Yes. Cruella The Pill dared to insert herself into my seventh payless transaction. "She reads from that distance, standing up." I think I detected scorn in her tone. Sarcasm. Delusions of adequacy from that two-fingered keyboard whacker who is most likely the sole reason the computer system is down every time I go in there. Which is frequently!

I really wanted to turn around and slug her. Almost as much as that cutesy frat boy at Harrah's Casino who pulled my crank. But I refrained. Didn't want to break my new glasses, you know.

The very NERVE of some people! I am the customer. I am always right. At least when it comes to deciding whether I can see well enough out of my glasses to do my job. I paid several tens of thousands of pretty pennies for those new lenses that were withheld from me for 33 days. I don't care how much Cruella The Pill wants to heckle me, I am the one who knows how I function at work. The distance at which I read is not up for debate. But apparently, it IS up for ridicule. By a two-fingered keyboard-whacker with a bad attitude. I wish I had thought to take my favorite gambling aunt with me. She is a crackerjack patient advocate.

But this milquetoast finally has new bifocals.