Often we forget that I am a foreigner here. 
Well, I don’t forget. 
Especially when I encounter people who do not know me. 
Like the optometrist yesterday. 
Who, with one eye on my chart said,” So did you watch any of the Olympics?”
“No. I am sorry” I said. “I don’t watch television.” He looked up at me. Losing his place. No TV?
“I write,” I said.
I went to the optomotrist yesterday to get another pair of glasses to wear about the farm. My present pair are about 10 years old and bedraggled. I just wanted a replacement.
“You are not from round here?” he said in response to my accent.
“Oh Yes.” I said, “I live on a farm about 20 miles that way”. I pointed at his East wall. His brow furrowed trying to think of a delicate way to say but you sound foreign.
“But the Olympics were in London.”
“Yes,” I nodded.
He looked back at my chart.
“Medications?”
“No.”
“None?”
“No.”
His head came up and he looked at me hard. “Who is your doctor then?”
“I don’t have a doctor.”
He shook his head. “You must have a doctor.”
“But I am never sick.”
“You don’t have a family doctor? What about your wellness checks.”
“But I AM well. I don’t need checking. Everyone has an imperfect body. No-one is in perfect health. Wellness check is such a strange expression anyway.”
The optometrist stood and began to shuffle about with strange looking instruments of torture.
I carried on. “That is like going to a car salesman and saying do you think I need a new car. Of course he will say you need a new car. But I am happy with my imperfect car. I mean body. It is all so confusing. I knew a funeral director once who always said Be Well, just before he said good bye to people. I mean it was obvious that what he meant was ‘be well until you drop dead and then I will bury you for a fee.’ Then he would pass them his card with the little cross and drawing of a casket on it. Hoping they would leave it lying about in an obvious place in case they dropped dead in the night. People don’t say what they mean anymore. Euphemisms rule. ”
“Well. he said into the pointed silence. “I feel I should encourage you to get a doctor and check on your blood pressure and so forth. It is a concern”.
“What is a concern is that Americans don’t use cutlery anymore.” The gloves were off.
“You mean we eat with our hands?”
“That too.” My eyes widened in horror “But no-one uses a knife and fork that I can see. When did you evolve to just using a fork. Who decided not to offer knives at the table. Some people even cut their food with a fork, with a lot of difficulty I might add. I have met people who cannot even Hold a knife”
He grunted.
Then he swung the peculiar glasses mask in front of my face, and we began Guess That Letter.
Later as he made the last of his notes.
“So. Do you read?”
“Oh yes.” I said and smiled. “I read all the books I can get my hands on. I read everything. I can quote the Weetbix box, verbatim.”
“What kind of books do you read.” He asks.
“Oh, well, um.. all of them. I read anything that comes into the house or anyone elses house for that matter.”
“You don’t have a preference?”
“No. Well, I like colourful covers. I pretty much choose books because for their covers, I like orange covers the best. Though, I prefer my books to have words in them.” I picked up my shoulder bag with its notebook, book and purse.
“Words,” he said?
“Words. Words. Words” I said standing back so he could open the door for me. “I don’t like cartoons I mean.”
“Oh,” he said. Relieved. “Well. Your eyes are in perfect health and your prescription has not changed by the way.”
I smiled at his back as he led me to the front. Perfect health you say. But I did not say it aloud.
…
“I have these old frames of my Mother in Laws I would like to use these please.” The whole lobby went silent and all eyes turned to me now standing at the counter. “New frames are way too expensive and I only use them on the farm anyway. These are only two years old and quite strong.”
The optometrist smiled with delight, handed me over to his dour assistant and made his hurried goodbyes.
“But these are not Our frames. We can’t do that. You will need to choose a new pair.” She attempted to give them back to me. I folded my hands on my purse.
“No, that is fine. I want to use these old frames. I would prefer to recycle these ones. They are perfectly good.”
“We don’t do that in this country.” I let my head drop to one side letting her words sit in the air for a few seconds “Well, I will have to check.”
“Oh I think it will be alright. It is a simple prescription. These technicians know what they are doing.”
“But we can’t guarantee them.”
“Thats fine.”
“But if you break them, we will not pay to fix them.”
“Thats fine. I promise to be careful. I can’t guarantee I won’t break either. It will be OK. These frames cost three hundred dollars. I am not having them just thrown away, I want to reuse them. Can you do this?”
“Well. I will have to check.”
“Good. You will call me when they are done?” I put my head back down to write the check. Trying not to catch the eye of the optomotrist who I could see was grinning to me from his office, just out of sight of his beleaguered assistant. I raised my eyebrow ever so slightly in his direction. He snorted a slight chortle and bent back to his work.
..
Good morning. I hope you all have a fab day. We are going to have another lovely day.
celi
On this day a year ago. I found a stunning bridge on route 66. Not far from here.
The Kitchen's Garden 
130 responses to “Confusing the man”
I’ve been “taught” how to eat with the fork in the left hand and knife in the right by a certain Brit here 😉 Morning Miss c for confusing them LOL
It is hard for us to watch the smash and scoop. Oh dear i am such a snob!! c
Had he known, the optometrist would have accompanied his grin with a “cheeky Kiwi”… and you have become quite acclimatised – check or cheque ? I can’t say it any better than you – the Route 66 bridge photos are simply stunning. You have to find a place for them.
Which did i write? I have to go back and look. It should be cheque! c
You are wonderful – loved this post!
Morning Julie, hope you are having just as gorgeous a day as we are! c
Aah, good to see you are in fine fettle as always miss C. Back home from my travels and the first thing I did was check up on the farmy – I missed you all. Amazing how people think it is foreign to recycle! 🙂 Laura
Welcome back Laura.. you were away AGES, we missed you! c
I love the no nonsense way you spoke to those people. They tried to make you look silly and you turned it around to make them look ridiculous!
Actually i was more just genuinely confused especially by the woman in charge of making the glasses, she was a wee bit hurumphy with me.. c
This is hilarious – ‘But the Olympics were in London?’ – ‘Yes.’. Classic. I used to work in an opticians and I can assure you that, at least in the UK, the notion of recycling frames is not as out there as it seems to be with your optician! Loved this post so much, thank you Miss C!
Thank goodness, because it seems a terrible shame to waste them. At the very least we can recycle them to charities though.. c
A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down! That is why the optometrist was smiling in the most delightful way 🙂 Lesson well delivered!
Morning Lacey, I think he was just relieved that i was taking my foreign ways and leaving! c
Just too funny C! Good for you! Love the pic of your rain gauge.
🙂 Mandy
That rain gauge has had a few showers lately.. such a joy! c
This was a good chuckle. I’m a Canadian living in Canada but very much perceived as an alien!
Have you been watching Dancing with the Stars?
No, I don’t watch TV
Did you read in the paper about….
No, I don’t read the news.
Over here is our selection of frames.
Oh I will just keep the ones I have, thank you.
Don’t you want new ones?
No, these are fine. I’ve had them 7 years and they are still in good shape.
Oh.
Have a great day!
Ha ha !! woman after my own heart! c
Americans can be hilarious… in 1979, my wife and I were in the US. We hired a car in California, and drove it to Seattle. Obviously, the hire car had CA plates. We stopped for a picnic lunch in Oregon, where another couple in a CA plated car also stopped nearby…. After a few minutes, we struck up a conversation, and soon they asked us where we were from. Upon replying “Australia”, and without batting so much as an eyelid, they replied “oh, we’re from Santa Monica”….. They obviously thought we came from Australia California…..! Later it came out they thought we were English because of our funny accent… I don’t think they had a clue about Australia. I guess, it was 1979…!
Oh the 70’s. I used to live here (US) in the 70’s when I was a teenager and I told the other students that at low tide we would WALK over to Aussie from New Zealand for a quick lunch as long as we got back before the tide changed we were ok!! No-one called me a liar! So funny. Mean though. (I laughed!) And the States are so big!! It would take a lifetime to see all of this country, let alone the world outside of it.. c
haha I love it, C 🙂
Morning Ksenia. c
Considering how big a country the USA is, it’s amazing how insular some Americans can be, compared with folk from the tiny British Isles – or New Zealand for that matter.
Bully for you, Celie, for sticking to your guns.
i was just not going to be spending extra money when it was not necessary.. c
I think the reason so many Americans are insular is precisely because the US is so big. You can travel your whole life, and travel long distances, and never leave the country. When I first married Brett, he was 51 and he had never been outside the US — but had visited almost every State here. …appalling. I set that to rights, pronto!
Not many can say they have visited every state though, that is a pretty awesome feat all in itself! I am fairly sure that john will never leave his country.. I always travel alone, which does not bother me actually.. c
I laughed through the whole post! (In solidarity: The knife thing bothers me to no end…I do NOT want to see anyone, especially not myself, pushing food around a plate with a thumb. Or stuffing oversized – allegedly bite-sized – hunks of food into the mouth at a buffet. I believe the loss of the knife has directly to do with buffet-style eating at parties. I personally can’t eat standing up or with a plate precariously perched on my lap because then I can’t use the knife. What knife, you ask ? The one I have to ask especially for before I cozy my chair up to a corner of the buffet table and sit and eat like a human being!)
I also find it hard to eat on my knee and using paper plates on the knee is terrifying. let alone trying to cut something and the plate bends in half!! hilarious.. c
hahaha — my husband uses his thumb like a knife when he thinks I’m not looking. It drives me NUTS!
This may be the best post yet! I could just see you and the optometrist and the optician. You ruled! My husband has recycled glasses frames (maybe once too many times; they’re looking pretty worn out, will hardly stay on his face now), so it’s not unheard of to do that. Their job is to sell those shiny new ones, or they think you odd for not wanting them. I have to come down on the side of having a family doc, though; that might not be such a bad idea. Someone older, and kind, with a gentle manner and soft voice. Someone who doesn’t charge an arm and a leg. Someone who would make house calls to the farmy. Oh, but they don’t make those anymore, do they. : )
Morning Gerry. I try to live chemical free, so taking pills is not going to happen is it?!! Don’t worry. i do not expect to live forever! I had a doctor just like you described. He was a wonderful old man. He was my family doctor while I was having children and then for a while after. But then he retired from medicine so I did too. This was over twenty years ago. c
Good for you! Aside from the recycling ethos, why should we feel obliged to ‘choose’ new frames? There is after all no real choice. Fashion dictates that all frames currently have a certain style, more often than not, one which doesn’t suit your face.
Christine
P.S. I find the ‘fork only’ method of eating weird too!
And i hardly need to make a fashion statement for Daisy! c