Monday Afternoon at the High Blood Pressure Emporium

I had a 3:30 appointment today to have new lenses put into my frames. Perhaps you remember my original visit to the optometrist's office, when all the workers ran around bumping into each other like ants, shouting about my blood pressure, which, according to the optometrist himself, did not even warrant mention.

Now I have figured out their obsession with blood pressure! And I'll share it with you. That office sends people's blood pressure skyrocketing like a mallet-and-bell test-of-strength at a carnival.

I arrived at 3:25, frames in hand. The counter girl took them and told me to have a seat. There were 25 chairs in the waiting room. I'll tell you how I know that a little bit later. None were occupied. So I chose one at the end of a row, my back to the front wall, right next the glass vestibule. I had a view of the whole waiting room, the counter, the main hallway, and the entrance.

One man came in after me. He told the counter girl that he'd been there three days in a row. Sucks to be him. I just didn't know how hard. A couple of frail, elderly women tottered in. A younger one followed. After a brief respite at the counter, they were told to have a seat. I'll be ding-dang-donged if they didn't sit RIGHT NEXT TO ME! Do you get my drift? There were 24 chairs from which to choose, and they chose the one RIGHT NEXT TO ME! I didn't know there were 24 chairs left. I had to surreptitiously count them with shifty eyes like those in a portrait in a medieval castle, because I didn't want to turn my head and inadvertently start a conversation with that spinster RIGHT NEXT TO ME.

I think, perhaps, they were severely dehydrated. Not thinking clearly. After all, people on an airplane would shy away from me. Complain to the stewardess. Boldly announce that I needed to purchase two tickets. Ask that I be removed from the flight because surely the plane was over the weight limit which would allow it to soar into the wild blue yonder. But here, in a Backroads optometrist's office, Slim Fady and her cohort wanted to rub elbows with me. Moisten their twiggy arms with the sheen of grease seeping out of my folds. I felt like Jabba the Hutt next to an anorexic tween version of Olive Oyl.

I would have been beside myself, but Slim Fady had already taken that chair. If she was Lucy and I was Ethel, we could have fought over the armrest like ex-friends in a theater. I didn't know how to cope. I wanted to write down snide remarks about her in my little spiral notebook, stuffed down the side of my purse, which I was clutching with a death grip, making it my own personal stress ball. However...I couldn't write because Slim Fady was RIGHT NEXT TO ME! She could have read everything I wrote. Kind of. Because I didn't bring in my bifocals, being there to pick up new ones along with my new lenses. And obviously, Slim herself was at the freakin' eye doctor for a reason. I believe she had mumbled something about not knowing what she was seeing because everything was blurry when she looked above her bifocals. Lucky for me, though, that I'm ambidextrous. I wiggled out my tiny spiral, my extra-thin Zebra pen, and went to town releasing my vitriol onto paper. I kept it turned away from her. Pretended it was just my wacky lefty writing style.

People began to pour into that office like refugees from an overheated clown car. A woman strode in dragging a hot-tempered little redhead by her wrist. The sister, maybe a year older, and a lifetime of second-fiddleness in her future, stumbled in three feet behind, managing to slam herself in each of the two entrance doors. In her defense...she WAS wearing glasses and entering an optometrist's office. A tall nerdy high school boy came in. An older blond woman with hair shorter than Ellen Degeneres. A mommy with a boy toddler. A gal with a girl toddler. All told...in 25 minutes, 22 people entered that office.

I was growing more perturbed by the minute. The one poor three-day guy was still at the counter, being quizzed on whether he took any medication. "Just for blood pressure. Lisinopril, I think." Great Googly Moogly, dude! Toss me one of those. They're generic. One point six six six repeating cents apiece!

Hope sprang eternal in my ruffled breast when I heard the companion to Slim Fady and Accomplice on the phone saying it was kind of crowded, and maybe the task could be accomplished another day. Imagine my surprise when she got up and left. Left Slim and her sidekick right there. They were not together. Meanwhile, all hands on deck were helping a family of three pick out new frames. I understand that frames are the bread and butter of the office. But that family was there before I arrived, treating the office like a cooling center.

Counter Girl came over and relieved me of Slim Fady and Co. Wouldn't you know it, not thirty seconds later, the questionable-parenting-skilled gal parked her girl toddler ONE CHAIR AWAY FROM ME. And left her! Absconded to the counter, leaving a tot who could barely string a sentence together. "Book? Book? Me walk. Book?" Mom Gal came back. Set Girl Tot in the chair again. Gave her a book. Left. "Sticker? Book? Me walk." Please make it stop, for the love of all that is booky and totty!

Fortune then smiled upon me. My years of clean living having paid off, Even Steven settling a score, Counter Girl (no, she wasn't that efficient, there were four of them, interchangeable) came out with my new frames, new bifocals, and a paper for me to sign twice.

I really need to call the doctor and get my blood pressure checked.

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ALTERNATE TITLES that converged upon the page, not taken:

Blind Like Me

There Are None so Blind as Those Who Go to the Optometrist's Office at 3:30 on a Monday Afternoon