The story behind the name:

One evening, at the Old Broadway Grill in Fargo, North Dakota, my brother caught the end of a Mountain Dew commercial. In the commercial, a Mountain Dew drinker was riding a shark in the ocean. My brother exclaimed in surprise, not realizing that it was a commercial. When I told him he declared "All I saw was a guy coming out of the shower with a shark." Of course, he meant water, but the idea of showering with sharks has been with me ever since.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Why gramma, how dilated your pupils are!

All the better to see nothing with, my dear!

Yesterday I went to the eye doctor for a check up. I was almost out of contact lenses and so decided it would be a prudent time to get a check up and new eye doctor. Over all, the experience was quite nice. The woman who did my contact lens exam was really competent, nice and funny. My eye doctor was very nice and seemed like he really knew what he was doing. During the course of my exam, I got drops put in my eyes three times. First, during my contact exam. I don't remember why she put them in. Something about the tear layer... I don't know. Second, I got yellow drops put it so that the doctor could do some glaucoma test. As this did not involve and puff of air into my eyes, I was quite happy. The drops were very yellow. I didn't realize how yellow until I got home and realized that my eyes looked like the had been ringed with iodine. The last set of drops was to dilate my pupils so the doctor could look at my corneas. Mark recently went through screening for lasik, which meant that he also had to have his pupils dilated. After I went through the experience, I felt a little bad for laughing at him (but seriously, you look really funny when your pupils are all huge).

Anyway, after the doctor put in the dilating drops, he left me for 15 minutes so that they could start working. I discovered after about 30 seconds that reading the magazine left in the office would not be an option. My distance vision remained good, but I couldn't focus on anything up close. My only other real option was to lay my head back and take a nap. So I did. It was a really nice 15 minute nap, all alone in the dark with the weird mask-like eye equipment. I wonder about that equipment. Like, when did they invent that weird mask thingy? And do you really look like a bug in it from the other side, because that's what I alway picture. And, does the eye doctor really understand how all that equipment works? If it would break down, could the eye doctor fix it? Do they have to take a class in buggy eye equipment?

I also wondered how someone decided to become an eye doctor. Are you just really fascinated with eyes from the time you are a small child? Personally, I think eye balls are kinda gross when you take them out of the context of the face.

Despite my huge pupils, I drove myself home with little incident. I wanted to get some work done, but that proved difficult since I could read anything. So, I resigned myself to watching "Transformers" and doing laundry - neither activity required me to focus on anything close. Eventually, my eyes went back to normal and I spent at least 30 seconds appreciating the functionality of my pupils - something we take for granted everyday.

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