Ugh, I had an eye appointment after work yesterday. I used to go to one of those shopping center eye chains and I swear the doctor I had there was 18, it was so concerning. Like she got her license from the back of matchbook. I hated the broad in the front of the place though, the one in charge of upselling frames, etc. She reminded me so much of this drag of human being named Brenna that I used to know from LiveJournal. So then I tried going to one of their other locations and was called “kelly” the entire time even after pointing out that my name was “Erin” and receiving an empty apology.

So, then Henry was like, “I found a real eye doctor that we can all go to as a family” (see Monday’s post re: Chooch going to the eye doctor alone and blaming me for his forgetting the insurance and HSA cards). I’ve only been there once so far, in 2023, and it was fine but I’m positive my prescription was wrong. So, there’s that.

The appointment was scheduled for 6pm and they tell you to get there 15 minutes early SO I DID because if people remember one thing about me when I die, let it be that I was punctual to a compulsion. (OK, let it be something cooler and more impressive than that, but still.)

Henry drove me because I had taken my contacts out at home so I wouldn’t have to fuck around with that there, and I literally cannot drive in glasses. I can barely walk down the steps in them. In fact, it had been so long that I wore my glasses (probably April when we were flying home from Korea!?) that I was screaming, “DO MY LEGS ALWAYS LOOK THIS SHORT AND SQUAT???” while Henry was holding my hand as I slowly descended the steps in the house.

I hate hate hate the eye doctor. I get performance anxiety so bad! What is the right answer?! Better or worse?! Or the same?! I legit cannot tell!! It’s nearly 2025 – why do I have to tell THEM?? Can’t a compute just show them how my eyes are seeing the stupid farmhouse in the picture?! I can’t handle it. And as such, my prescription is never correct. I can see but not well. I always have to ask Henry, “What does that say?” when we’re watching TV and it shows like, I dunno, the texts on someone’s phone.

(Luckily, I can still handle the size of subtitles.)

Arriving 15 minutes early like the good, clock-abiding citizen that I am, I walked inside on trembling fawn legs, filled out the required paperwork, and then sat with my legs crossed ultra-tight to suppress the nervous pee sensation.

It was freezing in there and I made sure to text Henry about this numerous times. There was a space heater but some old man was hogging it. He got called back soon after so I moved over to his seat and realized that maybe it wasn’t a space heater after all but an air purifier? I don’t know, but it emitted no heat whatsoever.

I was alone in the drab waiting room (it is like a free clinic in there, if you know what I mean) and no music was playing, even. WHERE IS THE SOFT ROCK, BITTEL VISION FAMILY??

“They still haven’t called me back yet,” I texted Henry with frozen fingers.

“It literally just turned 6:00,” was Henry’s response, and I could already sense that he was changing into his knight’s armor in the car.

Then it was 6:o6 so I made sure to let Henry know that they were officially late.

In all of my eye doctor appointed-spare time, I watched some IG reels with the volume off.

Then, thanks to targeted ads, I started thinking of all the things that I needed Henry to buy for me. Like vitamins.

“Order my vitamins.”
“I can feel myself declining.”
“Since you have been depriving me of them.”

After what seemed like a fortnight, it was now 6:15. I had been sitting there for 30 minutes at this point, with no one popping by to say, “Sorry we’re running a bit behind! Be with you soon!” Had they had the courtesy to check in with me, I wouldn’t have been silently turning into a time bomb in their dirty, ugly waiting room. I started to get the shakes, like I was ready to tear off my skin and show the world my inner Karenwolf, baying at the manager.

I texted Henry: “I’m going to leave.”

Even I didn’t know at the time if I was bluffing or not, but the longer I stewed in the BITTEL VISION inefficiency, the more my blood was boiling and I was starting to picture myself with a “Plus Eight” coif. Could I pull it off?

I could hear the raucous laughter of men down the hall, behind closed doors. Presumably THE BITTELS. This made me even angrier. These assholes were back there yukking it up while I was being robbed of my VERY IMPORTANT TIME.

So I did it. I wasn’t a Karen about it. I didn’t stomp my feet and yell about the unfairness of it all. I didn’t shove the door open angrily on my way out. I just simply got up and quietly left.

Then RAN TO THE CAR.

“Are you fucking serious?” Henry asked as I threw myself in the car like I was being tackled from behind by the eye doctor himself.

Henry, who by this point had finished polishing his feather-topped helmet, white-knighted them the whole way home.

“You have to wait at all doctors! It’s not just them!” he cried.

“It’s the fact that no one came out and apologized for the delay!” I countered. “If the receptionist had bothered to open her stupid privacy window and acknowledge that I had been LEFT TO DIE OUT THERE, I would have gladly continued to wait! BY THE WAY, I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE WE ARE!”

Also, this was DURING PRIME DINNER TIME. I HAD DELAYED MY EVENING FEEDING FOR THESE PEOPLE TO DICK ME AROUND.

(We were at a red light at an intersection and since I had glasses on, all I could see was BOKEH and my eyes were crossing.)

“And I don’t know why you’re such a Bittel stan, they fucked your glasses up last time!” I cried, unwillingly to move on.

“Yeah, and then they fixed it,” Henry said calmly.

“A GOOD EYE DOCTOR WOULDN’T HAVE MESSED IT UP IN THE FIRST PLACE!” I wheezed while clutching my chest.

We drove a bit in silence and then I started reading their reviews on Yelp. “They got shitty reviews, by the way,” I said in my patented, “JUST SO YOU KNOW” teenage lilt.

Then I said I was just going to go back to my old-old eye doctor down the street.

“You stopped going to him because he called you a crackhead!” Henry said.

“Yeah, but that was a long time ago. I’ve moved on from that, and he was really old then so maybe someone has succeeded him by this point.” You never know.

(He called me a crackhead because I was being neurotic as usual and self-diagnosing myself with obscure eye conditions.)

We came home and I immediately started chewing Chooch’s ear off about my mistreatment while Henry stood there with a smirk-frown on his face, waiting for his chance to white knight some more.

“OMG! Go take a bullet for the Bittels, for Christ’s sake!” I screamed. Chooch just shook his head and retreated to his room while CHUCKLING. Great, laugh at your mother’s trauma.

Eventually, Henry apologized to me for taking the side of the BITTELS.

I accepted his apology, but a few minutes later, I started giggling to myself. “Wanna know something funny?” I asked Henry, whose face immediately drained of color.

“WHAT. WHAT DID YOU DO.”

“Well, as I was walking out the door of the eye doctors—-”

“They fucking called your name, didn’t they?” Henry sighed in disappointment.

“Yeah, someone was totally walking down the hall calling my name,” I laughed. “But it was too late! I couldn’t turn around at that point! I had to stay committed to the cause.”

“omg,” Henry muttered.

———————

Later that night,  Henry and I were sharing a beer.  “That’s pretty good, I like it,” Henry said innocently.

“It’s no BITTEL VISION though!” I shouted mockingly and he floated out of the room on the pillowy bed of his deep sigh.

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