This is a short story about an interesting experience I encountered today, and while it’s pretty mundane compared to what else is going on out there I thought I should still share it.
My mom took me to go see the eye doctor for the first time as in my 17 years of life I’ve somehow never been to one, and she thought it was a good idea just to make sure all was well. I got to the office and after about 10 minutes of waiting I sat down in the chair and they started doing tests on me. It was a pretty safe procedure and it mostly consisted of things like reading text from 20 feet away with one eye. (For the record the room was not 20 feet long, rather it was 10 feet long and they had a projector and the back of the room which bounced off a mirror on to the wall behind me, and then there was a second mirror on the wall for looking at the projection.) While it was very safe I won’t lie that the entire time I was panicking about one part in particular: the eye drops. Basically they put these drops of some kind of yellow fluid in your eye which makes it go numb. After that they examine whatever they have to and then put another set of drops in your eye that causes the numbing drops to stop working. Somewhere in the mix your pupils get super dilated which somehow makes your vision go very blurry. After a few minutes of that they came back in, did some more tests, gave me some "glasses" and then sent me on my way. I put glasses in quotes because they’re not normal glasses but more like a black, semi-transparent film that goes over your eyes and clings to your head through static electricity.
I included pictures of the "glasses", but unfortunatly the glasses came in a roll which means I had to weigh them down with some old Microcassettes to lay it flat.
Since I’m underage my mom was with me the entire time and as we walked out to the car on that bright sunny day the glasses fell off my face. If you’ve ever messed around with a piece of prosumer/professional photo or video editing software then you may have at some point tried taking a photo and turning the brightness and contrast all the way up. When the glasses fell off it basically looked like that except actually bright, as in looking into a spotlight bright.
The instant the glasses fell off I cried out into the public parking lot I was standing in and swore at the top of my lungs. My mom wasn’t too pleased at that. Anyways we went to Walgreens and I bought some proper sunglasses that would stay on better, then a while later we went to Subway so I could grab a bite. My mom stayed in the car as I went in and ordered a sandwich, and while I was waiting there was a 20s or early 30s looking guy waiting for his sandwich to be finished, and because I could I walked up to him, took off my glasses and said in my most subtle stoner voice:
Of course I didn’t mention I had just been to the eye doctor, so for all he knew I was a 17 year old drug addict (He may have thought I was even younger than that, as I don’t look as old as I am.) his response went somewhere along the lines of:
His voice meanwhile seemed rather suspicious, although it was hard saying if that was because my pupils were dilated or if he just thought it was a weird question. You have to remember that I can’t see myself as the glass on the counter wasn’t reflective enough, and I didn’t want to go into the bathroom to check as that might ruin the illusion. So I got my sandwich and paid for it without looking at him again and then after eating it I went over to the Walmart next door and checked my eyes in the bathroom mirror in the back of the store. And this was maybe between 6 to 10 minutes after the subway encounter and after all that time my pupils were still about 5/3 the size of what they should be. So either the guy at the Subway legitimately didn’t notice or he was lying for whatever reason.
So I might have the police looking for me now and I wouldn’t even know it, but I guess it depends on how suspicious the guy at Subway was. So that’s how my day went, I have to say it was way more interesting than usual just given that I basically attempted a social experiment and got away with it. So maybe next time I get an eye appointment I’ll have to try this again, but next time, I’ll be prepared to make myself look way more like a stoner.
Argot
Page created: Tuesday, December 12th, 2017