By Bob Kaster
I had my monthly appointment this morning with my eye doctor. Now routine for me, as I’ve been doing it for several years. Macular degeneration, which sucks. Routine also for my eye doctor.
An eye shot! Yes, once a month I voluntarily go in so evil sadistic Dr. Wildest can stick a needle in my eye!
I’m fastened down to a horizontal bed-like device, totally immobilized, with at least a dozen straps holding me down. Although I can’t move my head, in my peripheral vision I see him approaching. I can see his face, and especially his eyes. They are blood red. He has a diabolic grin.
Then I can see his right hand. He’s holding a syringe. It’s the size of a bicycle pump. The needle is four inches long and a quarter of an inch thick. I can see that he’s drooling as the bicycle pump needle gets ever closer to my right eye.
“Mwahahahaha!” exulted sadistic Dr. Wildest. “I’ve got you now! Do you see this syringe? I’m going to stick this in your eye and push the plunger. Bwhahahaha! Your eyeball will explode and squirt foul smelling yellow stuff all over the whole room.”
I tried to close my eye, but Nurse Ratchett took care of that. She had a toothpick, sterilized, she said. She broke it in half, and put on her gloves; very thick garden gloves. She pried open my eye and inserted the half toothpick to keep the eyelids wide open.
As the giant syringe’s needle was about to make contact with my right eye, Dr. Wildest said, “You know, my boy, we are always looking for the most modern up-to-date medications for our eye injections. Today is the first day we are using this newest one. The brand name is Hychlor. It’s a new drug, just yesterday approved by the FDA at their weekly Friday afternoon meeting at the Café Milano in Washington, D.C. It’s called Hydrochloric Acid, and its chemical formula is HCI. It’s a miracle drug, as I’m sure you will attest.”
***
“Bob!” said the nurse, with her tablet in her hand. “Bob!” She had to say it twice.
I jumped. I realized I was still in my eye doctor’s waiting room, and had drifted off.
I dutifully followed her into one of the exam rooms, still not quite back to reality. Or was I?
After several visits from technicians and nurses, and a lot of drops in my eyes, finally the eye doctor himself came into the room. Before he got there, the nurse had carefully set out everything he would need for my eye injection. I couldn’t help but notice the drill bit.
