You know how when you walk into a shop, the person behind the counter will almost certainly smile or wave hello?
That wasn’t the case when I walked into a “fashionable” optometrist in Sydney tonight. The guy behind the counter looked over at me, and then looked away as if I wasn’t worth his time to acknowledge. My aunty Edna once described something similar as she entered an optometrist in Brisbane wearing glasses held together with sticky tape.
As I wandered around looking at the display spec, I overheard the other sales assistant chatting to a reasonably fashionable-looking young woman. “Darling, how old are you”, he asked with the intonation of the character created by Sacha Baren Cohen of “Brüno” the uber-gay fashionista. “You should never wear glasses like this until you’re at least forty”, I overheard him say. I think I might have laughed out loud.
I looked around for a while and at no stage did either of the shop assistants come up to me and ask if I’d like some help. In the end, it doesn’t matter, as I don’t need glasses. I was just wandering around looking in shop windows, as it’s the first time in at least a couple of months since I’ve done anything like that. I did, however, see some rather nice-looking specs that I’ll consider for the next time I need new glasses.
I left work just before five this afternoon, a minor miracle given how busy I’ve been over the last few weeks. The election, another project I’m working on, and covering a few absences, and the last month, in particular, has been uber-busy. But there’s now light at the end of the tunnel, and so this afternoon I left work a little early and went on a window shopping adventure.
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