Eye exam

“Hi; my name is ******. I’ll be doing your pre-check before the doctor sees you.”
It was the usual procedure at Canandaigua Eye-Care Center. A tech performs various pre-checks before the ophthalmologist appears: eyeball pressure, glasses prescriptions, vision tests, etc.
“Please state your full name and birthday.
“Robert J. Hughes, H-U-G-H-E-S.” I spell it because it’s often misspelled without the “E.”
“February 5th, 1944; which is eons ago,” I said.
“No it’s not,” she said, following her usual conversation with aging crackpots.
“It is too,” I said. “Born in the wrong century, and as we all know the 20th century was just a fabrication by Hollywood and Walter Cronkite. We never went to no Moon!”
She laughed tentatively, but didn’t call Security.
After nearly 75 years on this planet I found the best way to parry boiler-plate is make fun of it. Make people laugh, even if it’s only me. Sometimes people take offense though no fence was offered.
“Excuse me while I get an instrument,” the tech said. She was gonna test my internal eye-pressure.
“When you said that I thought you might return with a trombone or a piano.”
She laughed again, then tested my eyeball pressure. Still no Security.
“Now I will dilate your pupils.”
“Memories of elementary-school,” I said; “where I was a pupil.”
Poor girl; dealing with an aging crackpot. Still no white coats. “The doctor will see you shortly.”
“Any questions?” the ophthalmologist asked after completing the exam. I’m supposed to say “no,” but “what are cataracts?” I’m beginning to get cataracts. “Anything like Niagara Cataract?”
Discussion followed.
Poor guy; I had to explain, plus I wasn’t releasing him for his donut-break.
“North of Niagara Falls, Niagara River flows through Niagara Cataract. Are eye-cataracts similar?”
“No. An eye-cataract is not the same as a river cataract.” Yada-yada-yada-yada. The ophthalmologist wasn’t familiar with Niagara Cataract.
“With an eye-cataract your eye-lens clouds.” Mine are inconsequential, only beginning.
When the cloudiness gets bad enough, surgery switches out the lenses you were born with to implants.”
“Are they plastic?” I asked.
“Sorta......”
“So what’s Lasik?” I asked.
“That’s different. Cataract surgery implants an artificial lens. Lasik only reshapes your original lens with laser surgery.”
“An older gentleman I know says he had Lasik. But it sounded like cataract surgery to me. Sorry I bothered you, but I needed to know what is going on.
“That’s it, Mr. Hughes. Your eyes are in excellent condition for someone your age.”
Next was setting up my next annual appointment. “Which weekday do you want?” asked a receptionist probably older than me.
“How about Friday December 6th, 2019?”
“That’s one day before ‘a date which will live in infamy,’” I said.
December 7th, 1941, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
“You get it, of course,” I said. “Many younger pups don’t.”
“A date which will live in infamy” is President Franklin D. Roosevelt before Congress the day after the attack.
My knee-replacement was done three years ago, also on “a date which will live in infamy.”