Eye eye

Girl on tube, about 19 but sounded 12, on mobile, doesn't break for breath: "I'm not angry because you did it, I'm angry because you didn't tell me when I asked you, you wouldn't like it if, oh my God there's a sign saying don't feed the pigeons, I did something wrong and didn't tell you."
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I apologise for my recent absence. Did you miss me? Oh. Anyway, I've done the middle aged vanity thing and had my eyes lasered. It was a bit of an ordeal to be honest. Although it was in Soho it wasn't a backstreet clinic, it was all kosher. They didn't strap me to a wheel of fortune and spin me round while someone dressed as Captain Kirk with his back to me, swung round suddenly and fired his laser gun into the middle of my eye.
No it was all very civilised. I got coffee and everything afterwards. But the thing is, I'd been expecting this treatment that takes a day or two to recover from and then, hey presto, the scales lifted. As Debbie said, all I want is 20-20 vision. I've had specs since I was eight and quite frankly I'm sick of them. It's taken almost 40 years to make this decision.
So the surgeon, a jolly man with lots of hand movements, says to me: "We were going to give you the Lasik treatment but the angle of the edge of your eye is irregular so we are going to give you the Lasek treatment instead." OK, I thought, you say tomato etc.
Lasik is the nice cuddly treatment. You have a day where it feels like you've got a bit of grit in your eye and then suddenly you're reading out the registrations of passing 747s. Lasek is the evil brother. It takes three to four days to recover from the initial treatment and then a few more weeks to get perfect vision.
Unfortunately there's no difference in price. There is another treatment called Wavefront which is half as much again, but having got this far I went ahead with Lasek.
And boy did it hurt. First the treatment. Ten minutes watching this funny light while they poke your eye. And there's no laser sound like sci-fi movies. It crackles like someone cranking the handle of a car on the London to Brighton rally. And then there's the burning. That's right, you can smell your eyeballs burning. Mind you, that's not that bad. I once had a vasectomy. Imagine being able to smell something burning south of the border while an Irish nurse, on her knees, is looking straight at One Eyed Solly and asking if you've been anywhere nice on your holidays.
Back to eyes. In the pre-amble the jolly surgeon told me, as did the blurb, that there was a 'certain level of discomfort' to come. Ha. It was as discomfortable as hell. It discomforted like crazy. It continued to discomfort me for days.
After it's done, you spend 15 minutes thinking that wasn't so bad, before stepping outside and your eyes start to sting like the Devil's burning hot pitchfork is being jabbed into each pupil. You have to have a lift home. They don't let you out without one. Then they expect you to come back the next day on the tube but 12 hours later I was still in agony. Four different kinds of eyedrops, loads of painkillers (and Nurofen is best for eyes apparently) and early nights. Every now and again you get a moment of clarity in the gloom. A bit like life.
Two days later it doesn't hurt so much and the eyesight is a bit better than it used to be minus the bins but I can't keep my eyes open for long periods so I feel pretty useless. Saturday night's Thanksgiving Dinner was cancelled. Sunday meant no going to Spurs and squinting to catch it on Sky. Monday is better and it is only now I can focus on a screen for long enough to type this.
Tomorrow it's back to work and the 'bandages' taken off at the clinic. The bandages are invisible dressings on the eye and once they are off, things should be a bit clearer.
In a week or two, I'll be like everyone else who's had the treatment and wondering what all the fuss is about. I'll no longer wear glasses, except perhaps for reading now and again, and after 40 years of failing eyesight, I'll have perfect vision once more. Is it worth it? Ask me again in a few weeks.
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Talking to American friends it turns out I'm an Americophile. That conjures up visions of standing in bushes waving a hot dog to lure fat people into some kind of sordid den of iniquity. But it just means I like Americans. Though judging the revelations from Wikileaks, I'm not sure the Americans like anyone else. What I don't get though, is that depending on your prejudices, the Western world is either in the pocket of the Saudis or is controlled by a great big Zionist plot. Seeing as both the Arabs and the Israelis want America to bomb Iran, why on earth haven't they done so yet?
I'll be seeing you (hopefully)...Solly