The Air Force Optometrist

The Air Force Optometrist

The time I unsuccessfully successfully pulled rank. Yes, you read that right.

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I’m stationed at the Pentagon where the words on my computer screen just aren’t as sharp as they were when I had a 3 in front of my age instead of a 4. I even try different computers, but the common denominator in all my failed unofficial vision tests is me.

I know it’s time to make an appointment for an official vision test. The advantage of working in the Pentagon is we have a full complement of every service you need during the long work day. There’s a bank, gift shop, barbershop, beauty shop, pharmacy, food court, dentist, jeweler, chocolate shop, florist and, pivotal to this story, an optometrist.

So I’m on my way to the Pentagon clinic to get my eyes checked by an Air Force optometrist.

The military rank structure at the Pentagon is top heavy when compared to any other military facility. There are a lot more Generals and Admirals walking the halls than initial-entry ranked folks. Pentagon occupants tend to be closer to AARP membership qualifying age than they do minimum legal-drinking age. 

Today’s optometrist is a textbook example of this imbalance. 

Like most of the people assigned to the Pentagon, I have become accustomed to the top-heavy rank structure and am unfazed by having my eyes checked by an eye doctor who couldn’t even celebrate his medical school graduation with an alcoholic beverage.

Doogie Howser held the distinction of being the youngest licensed doctor in the country until my eye doctor came onto the scene. Note: if you don’t know who Doogie Howser is, then you were probably kindergarten classmates with my eye doctor. So we’ll just call my eye doctor Young Sheldon.

I am old enough to know who Doogie Howser is, hardened by the reality that I’m on the back side of my career and have officially become the “they” I used to complain about.

I’ve also become impatient with the slow bureaucracy that I, as “they,” perpetuate.

I really just need Young Sheldon to update the prescription for my reading glasses to sharpen the letters on the computer.

He dims the light, then challenges my ability to retain the mnemonic for the letters I saw with two eyes before he made me read the line with only one eye. He rolls his chair in front of me, with only a terminator endoskeleton mask and breath mint job security between us.

Then we go through what is the most stressful part for me, “Which is better, one or two? Three or four? Boxers or briefs?” 

I swear it’s just a test and I’m pretty sure he’s just toggling between two identical settings give him ammo for the next optometry convention where attendees joke about how many patients fell for the “Which is better?” game.

A few more depth perception, near sight, far sight games than a double retinal burn with a magnifying glass and the boy doctor turns up the lights.

“Everything look ok, Captain?” Calling him by his rank seems more believable than calling him “Doctor.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Sooooo, no glaucoma in there clouding up my computer screen vision?” I joke, fishing for a medical marijuana card I don’t really want (it’s like taking hotel mini shampoos and mouthwashes that I never use).

He grabs his prescription post it notes to not prescribe cannabinoids to reduce my absent intraocular pressure. 

“No ma’am, your eyes just need some assistance for both near and far vision. This is just a natural part of the aging process, ma’am.”

Although he’d been professionally respectful up until now and compliant with the military rank nomenclature protocol, the subtext of his last “ma’am” had a very gentrified tone that sounded like, “Grandma.”

I can sense he’s not only gathering material for banter at the eye doctor rally (those guys really make a spectacle of themselves), but he’s also playing his young man card, which makes me want to pull the tennis balls off my walker and knock the pen out of his hand before he makes the first mark on his prescription pad. I have too many friends whose eyeglasses have that telltale line in the middle of the lens that scream, “Hey! I’m so old, I’m now familiar with the word ‘presbyopia!’” 

I make a note to get younger friends, and then get back in the higher ranking seat. “Captain, if the first word of that new prescription begins with a ‘bi,’ we’re gonna have a problem.”

The young whippersnapper quickly realizes that we’re heading down a path of a story he won’t want to share with his eye mentors. He’s been beat and he knows that I might need bifocals, but such a prescription will not bode well for his military career.

“Oh no ma’am,” he stammers, ripping off the script for my reading glasses, then starting on a separate script for my distance vision glasses.

“Here ya go, Colonel,” he hands me two pieces of paper for old-school bifocals, also known as two pairs of glasses.

I arrogantly take my victory prescriptions, having shamelessly pulled rank. I depart the clinic with my head held high.

My head was held high until my prescription, correction, prescriptions, were filled. 

I feebly depart the clinic with two pairs of glasses, realizing that in shamelessly pulling rank, I had been outranked by a lower-ranking officer. 

Every time I have to switch glasses for near or far vision clarity, I, the Colonel, curse the Captain.  

Actually I curse myself. The two pairs of glasses helped me see the problem with trying to outrank a professional. 

Before my eye puns get cornea and cornea, I’ll let you know that I went back and got my prescription (singular) for bifocals. 

Now my dual spectacle-carrying case is half full (or is it half empty?) but I’m seeing 20/20 and will be for a long time, because I plan to dilate.