Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Fashionable, sporty or chilled?

Amidst a rather better day at work today (and at least no-one was bitchy to me, well hurrah, captain, and put out the ruddy bunting, eh ...), I have been trying to arrange my annual eye appointment. Since last year it's all gone more modern and now the Godalming optician circles appear to be bookable via the internet. Naturally, given the chance to avoid speaking to anyone at all, I will choose that route, so I spent a relatively happy ten minutes finding my store and picking a time. However, I fear it's not that simple, oh no. Gone are the days when you could just admit your name and select a slot. Now, my dears, you have to answer questions on your lifestyle and the lifestyle of your glasses before you even get to the calendar questions. However, none of the choices relate to me at all, and I fear I had to make a decision between whether I and my specs are (a) fashionable, (b) sporty, or (c) chilled. Strangely there's no option for bag-lady with an attitude problem - so much for widening participation then. I also find it strange that the glasses have a section of their own, so you can be sporty and they can be fashionable, and so on. Perhaps it's a way of separating the misfits amongst us?

Anyway, after much consideration, my glasses and I decided we are both chilled, even though it's fairly obvious that I am probably the most strung-out person in the universe, as the other options were even more ridiculous. I wait to see now whether my appointment will be confirmed. In the meantime, Lord H wonders whether this new approach will also affect the eye test itself and whether I will have to stare myopically at smaller and smaller pictures of beer bottles, sofas and televisions and see if I recognise them (substitute Armani and Farhi designs for the Fashionable set, and football club managers for the Sporty people) until my brain explodes ... We wait and see.

In the meantime, here's a calming poetry book with a pleasingly large font (ideal for Christmas): Salt and Gold.

Anne

4 comments:

Jilly said...

Nothing like trying to make things easier by making them more complicated! I'd always rather do something online than phone up with the result the other half thinks I'm scared of using the phone. He immediately reaches for the phone even though he's more computer literate than I am. I keep saying if there are different ways of doing things what's wrong with using them?

Anne Brooke said...

Very true - if it's there why not use it? Though I must admit to not liking the phone much. Still, I appear to be booked in - they rang me back & confirmed.

:))

Axxx

Jilly said...

At least it worked!

Anne Brooke said...

I know - I was astonished! :)) Axxx