Day 1874 Eyeball to eyeball

30th September 2022

This is the day I remember Michael Elliot, it still saddens me to think that he was so alone that he chose today to end his life. Who carried the responsibility? I don’t know, maybe we all do, in a small way, especially when the signs are all around us but we often don’t know what they mean.

The only thing I can do is spend a little of my time with him in mind.

I had an appointment with the optometrist, I needed new lenses for my glasses as the surface had deteriorated badly and they ceased to function as an eye piece at all.

Kelli dropped me at the premises with the intension of going to Goodwill whilst I was going through all the procedure.

From the blank look of the receptionist I realised I was in the wrong branch. I should have been in the one across town. Luckily Kelli had called them to check how long I would be, so she quickly returned, and soon we were speeding to the other branch.

The place was bright, it was like a heavenly oasis, Kelli had to keep her sunglasses on.

The place was full of Herman Miller chairs and Eames storage units, so a bit of cash was spent on the furniture.

The receptionist asked for my old glasses, which, if she had some forceps she would have used them to take them.

Then it was off to room one to have my eyeballs photographed. All around there were large pictures of eyeballs in various degrees of seriousness, God I hope mine are not in the bottom row.

Gone were the strange frames where the optician would slot in the different lenses to find the correct focal length. In this place technology has overtaken and everything is done electronically, however the choices to be made are are down to the patient.

Finally she brought up the pictures of the back of my eyes, apart from looking weird were perfectly healthy and showed not abnormalities.

The next stage was the frame selection out in the showroom. A girl with strange symbols tattooed on her fingers attended to us. I wanted new lenses in my old frames, but she looked at them closely and said that it was not possible. That was a shock, but she pointed to the wide selection of frames on offer and invited me to choose new ones.

This was not an easy choice, some of my choices earned sniggers from Kelli, but eventually we settled on a couple of frames suitable for my face.

Then it was down to the hard facts, the price.

She tapped furiously on her keyboard announcing that there was a forty percent discount on the second pair the final bill was one thousand and eighty four dollars.

Now it sounded a lot, but actually for two pairs of glasses and the test I thought it was a fair price.

That done we headed home, and took a bike ride down to the park.

Later we had a customer arrive in a car hoping to fit a dresser in it. I think we tried every way to get it in short of cutting the roof off tomorrow avail, so she’s coming back tomorrow with a different vehicle.