Today I went to the opticians. To start with, it went as it usually does: I sat and waited for ages while some elderly people 'ummed' and 'ahhed' about which pair of massive specs to buy for doing their crosswords and picking winners on Channel 4 racing; then I entered the brightly lit room, had the scary-looking contraption put on my face and told the friendly lady whether it was "better...or worse" with each change of slide. However, just as I was about to pay my £5 and leave (I'm a cheapskate, I did go to Specsavers) when I was told one more test was required, this time to assess my peripheral vision. I walked into a little room to one side, which I had never so much as thought of entering before, dimly-lit and often occupied by an old bloke staring into a light box with a clicker in his hand. I was peturbed, to say the least.
The process is as follow: you wear a fetching pair of dusty old specs with one lense taped over while following a red dot around a screen, clicking the clicker once for every green dot (between none and four may appear with every mechanised whirring and shift of the red dot), before repeating with the other eye covered. Fairly boring, after only a few minutes. But on emerging from the little dark room, I was told I had to do the test for my left eye again. After this repeat performance, I was told I was missing dots in the same section of my vision each time and therefore yet another test was required. I'd was wondering, albeit for a split second, if my family's history of glaucoma had caught up with me a bit early, or something.
After the third time of asking, I was told everything was fine (I had, in effect, 'passed') and it was probably just because I had got a bit bored. Panic over.
The process is as follow: you wear a fetching pair of dusty old specs with one lense taped over while following a red dot around a screen, clicking the clicker once for every green dot (between none and four may appear with every mechanised whirring and shift of the red dot), before repeating with the other eye covered. Fairly boring, after only a few minutes. But on emerging from the little dark room, I was told I had to do the test for my left eye again. After this repeat performance, I was told I was missing dots in the same section of my vision each time and therefore yet another test was required. I'd was wondering, albeit for a split second, if my family's history of glaucoma had caught up with me a bit early, or something.
After the third time of asking, I was told everything was fine (I had, in effect, 'passed') and it was probably just because I had got a bit bored. Panic over.
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