A Spaceship Ride to Heaven
I had my first kid when I was 25.
The next day my hair started falling out.
Then my family doctor said I needed glasses.
(It was all quite traumatic.)
I looked up the closest opthamologist and ended up with an old guy in an even older office. The furniture was stiff and musty, the ceiling was stained, and the eye equipment looked like a medieval torture device.
After a rigorous exam, the doctor confirmed that I did in fact need glasses — a fact I refused to accept. When I gave in and bought a pair, I hated wearing them so much I went back to the opthamologist.
“I don’t like how they feel,” I said.
“Maybe your prescription’s a bit off,” he said, and then put me back in the torture device. “Nope. Prescription looks good.”
“I just don’t like having them on my face,” I whined. “It’s like I’m looking at everything through a window. Is that what it’s supposed to feel like?”
“I don’t know,” said the old opthamologist incredulously, as if he’d never been asked such a thing in all his years of practice. “I’ve never worn glasses.”
Sigh.
—-
A few years ago, I found a new opthamologist. A young guy. His office was brand new. And big.
My insurance only covers new glasses every two years, so that’s how often I go see the eye doctor.
On my last visit, things at the office looked a little different. All of the staff was was wearing black scrubs. Very avant garde.
I was helped at the reception desk by a black-scrubbed guy who looked to be just a few years younger than me. His hair was receding (I feel ya, bro) and he was wearing sweatbands on his wrists. Was this a fashion choice, I wondered. Or did he get really sweaty answering the phone and handing out consent forms on clipboards?
I filled out my consent form and then sat in the waiting room, listening to Rihanna’s We Found Love played on cellos, until my name was called.
—-
I was met in the next room by a stout woman, also in black scrubs. I don’t know her name, as she didn’t tell me. Instead, she got right to ordering me to sit down and put my my chin on that metal thing and my forehead on the soft thing.
“Now, open your eyes wide. And DON’T BLINK.”
She pushed a button and POOF! Air shot into my eyes.
I blinked.
“I told you not to blink!”
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I’m not good at not blinking when stuff shoots at my eyes.”
“We’ll, we’re going to have to do it again.”
I blinked again.
Annoyed, she pretended I didn’t.
—-
We moved to the next room.
“I’m going to dilate your eyes,” said the unnamed woman in the black scrubs. “If I use the drops, it’s free. If I use the machine, I don’t have to dilate them but it costs $30.”
“I’ll take the drops.”
“Okay, sit in the chair and lean back.”
She was shorter than me, so I kind of scooted off the side of the chair and leaned in toward her.
“Ooh, that’s really good leaning,” she said. “I’ve never had someone lean like that before.”
Apparently what I lacked in blinking, I more than made up for in leaning.
I was forgiven.
—-
Then I was not introduced to another guy. This nameless man was also in black scrubs. A new young doctor, maybe?
He brought the big machine — the number 1, number 2 thing — in front of my eyes. As he leaned up close to adjust it, I could see his eyes, magnified to giant size.
He was close enough that I could feel his breath on my face. Even without magnification, I could tell he needed a mint.
The “which is better, number 1 or number 2?” thing is the absolute worst part of going to the eye doctor.
“Uh, number 1. Oh, wait. Number 2. I mean, let’s see number 1 again,” I stuttered.
So much pressure. I could feel myself sweating. What if I chose the wrong number and it set off a chain reaction of wrongness that resulted in me having the wrong prescription which led to me going blind and never being able to see anything ever again?
After a series of agonizing choices, the exam was complete.
“Looks like your prescription stayed pretty much the same,” said the stranger in the black scrubs.
Phew. Looks like I guessed correctly.
—-
I was then taken to another waiting room, where my pupils got bigger and bigger, and I listened to two cellos play Linkin Park.
Eventually, I was retrieved by another black-clad worker — who again didn’t say who she was or where she was taking me — and led to yet another room. A dark room, with a brightly-lit screen with all sorts of colorful fish swimming through unimaginably blue waters.
So serene.
“The doctor will be with you shortly,” said the woman whose name I didn’t know but who apparently wasn’t the doctor.
—-
My eyes were fully dilated and nearly hypnotized by the swimming fish when the door opened — not the door I had come through — but another door in the back.
And in walked…
The doctor.
When I first him a few years ago, he was a young guy — probably in his mid-40s, blonde hair, clean cut. But he clearly seemed to be in midlife crisis mode now. His hair, though thinning a bit, had grown longer and he was sporting a stubbly beard.
He, too, was in black scrubs, though the top seemed to have shoulder pads. The pants may have been joggers, or maybe he had them tucked into black socks. And he was wearing black Vans slip-ons.
With the glow of the fish screen illuminating his hair and beard, he looked like…like…The Leader. Like the next room he would take me to wouldn’t be another waiting room with more cello-fied versions of pop songs from the early 2000s, but rather a big round room. A big round room filled with dozens of nameless people wearing black scrubs. Waiting to board the ship. To Heaven. With the Leader.
The Leader leaned forward, looked into my dilated left eye. And then my right.
“Everything looks good,” he said.
And then pointed me to the door.
I stood up, and walked tentatively through the portal. To Heaven.
I rubbed my dilated eyes and then opened them.
There was no spaceship. No Heaven. Just a receptionist wearing sweatbands on his wrists.
I grabbed the little tinted plastic sunglasses — as well as a half-dozen Jolly Ranchers out of the bowl on the reception desk — and walked back into the daylight.
