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Monday, February 28, 2011

Eye doctors rock

It's kind of a Pavlov thing I suppose.
You know who Pavlov was, right?
He was the guy who got a dog to salivate every time he rang a bell because he taught the hound to equate food with the tinkle of the bell.
Kind of like Brian Mulroney every time he hears the work kickback.
The Big BM - as I like to call him - looked like a St. Bernard he had so much drool dribbling down his freakishly large chin.
I know, that's not nice. So I would just like to apologize to all of the St. Bernards out there.
Anyway, Pavlov deduced the dog associated the sound with the reward of food ñ making a mental connection with an auditory stimulant (oooh, fancy words.)
The same thing happens to me every time I walk into a dentist's office.
No, I don't start barking and dragging my butt across the carpet, but as soon as I open the door of doom I am hurtled back in time to when I was a kid and went to a dentist we had nick named The Butcher.
He was a rather rough dental specialist and I quickly grew to dislike seeing the man. And of course every dentist office in the free world smells exactly the same, so even as an adult when I walk into the office I am gripped with the same feeling of dread I had when I was a youngster.
Mind you, I am all grown up now so I can face my fears like a man, which means not whimpering and tearing up at the mere sight of the dentist chair.
I still do it, but I manage to stifle it so no one can tell.
But it is this Pavlov thing with a dentist that makes going to the optometrist so enjoyable.
You see, The Butcher had an office right next door to our family eye doctor, so the dentist smell would flood the entire floor, but on this occasion I got to walk past the door of doom and go directly to the eye guy.
The relief was noticable and eye doctors have always been OK in my books, even when they put that goop in your eye that freezes it for the next hour.
Small price to pay to avoid The Butcher.
The eye doc was also cool because of all the neat instruments he had in his office ñ none of which hurt.
You got to put you chin on that little strap thingy and look through the other thingy and read the eye chart.
ìOK, now can you read the first line for me.î
ìNo problem doc, that E is so big Stevie Wonder could read it.î
I would then work my way down the line of letters until you got the microscopic letters at the very bottom line that nobody could read and was put there just so the optometrist could keep flipping those things in the eye machine.
Every time I went, I had 20/20 vision and I left his office without a frozen face, sore jaw or bad attitude.
As I mutate into an older gentleman, my eye sight is no longer 20/20. It would seem Father Time has a thing against being able to read the fine print, so I am now the proud owner of reading glasses.
I must admit, I am not too crazy about having to wear reading glasses, mainly because they are kind of a pain to have to always have nearby just to read a set of instructions, or whatever that is not printed in a giant font.
I have long arms so I do not need to carry the glasses every where I go, but I do have to smile as I read a menu at arms length because I can remember watching 'old' people doing that when I was a young people.
Life is a funny thing, isn't it?

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