I like a test. You might go so far as to say I love a test (I came home from an induction day at my secondary school bitterly disappointed they didn’t set any homework, so that tells you all you need to know about my nerdiness). But there is a test I fear. A test that makes me go strangely goosepimply. The eye test.

It’s like all the worst social awkwardness wrapped up in half an hour of squinting. And, worst of all, it’s a test I routinely fail.

Why am I being a big baby about a ‘harmless’ trip to the optician? Fine, I’ll tell you:

• It’s dark, the lights are dimmed, the room is hushed and a face moves slowly towards you. Closer and closer it gets, just inches away. You hold your breath. Your heart races. ‘Are they?’ you think giddily, ‘Are they going to kiss me?’ No, you egomaniac, they are just looking at the back of your eye.
• Some small part of me can’t believe those huge plastic frames with all the slots and twiddly arms aren’t just a huge joke to help pass the optician’s time of day. Imagine, they laugh in the staff room, she actually thought it was part of the eye test! Ha! (I wonder if opticians have a word for the poorly-sighted, like wizards call people Muggles in the Harry Potter books. Gogglers? Squintoids?)
• ‘Is it the green light? Or the red? A? Or B? Which is clearer?’ I DON’T KNOW! MY RUBBISH VISION IS THE REASON I’M HERE! Don’t look to me for the answers – help me!
• You’ve never known terror until someone else puts contact lenses in your eyes.
• If you don’t want me to blink as the puff of air is shot into my eye, perhaps don’t tell me you’re about to shoot my eye with a puff of air. Just a suggestion. It’s like saying, ‘Don’t move your foot away because I’m about to tread on it.’

At yet without all this awkwardness and the health professionals that distribute it, I’d be putting Bisto in my chocolate cake mixture and lining my eyes with a Berol pen. It’s grin and bare it time, I suppose… Or, more accurately, read it and weep. 

C x

I have found that ‘First World Problems’ is not just a damn funny hashtag on Twitter (see Caitlin Moran and other such snorty-laughter-inducing funny people) but a pretty useful way of putting life in perspective. So you’ve had a shitty day at work, an unsatisfying lunch and then a hellish commute. But would you even get a whiff of such things as a career, loads of food and easy transport if you didn’t live a charmed First World life?

Now, chill your beans, I’m not about to march to speaker’s corner with my hemp shoes a-polished ready to kick up a strident stink, I’m just saying that if you find yourself getting narked because your ipod battery is doa at the start of your train journey, maybe just think ‘But aren’t I jammy to have an ipod anyway?’ and roll your eyes and grab a Metro/Stylist/[insert regional variance here]. And you’ll find yourself pffting away stress and untangling knots between your shoulder blades and being a touch more smiley for no huge reason. Magic.

But I am guilt of losing my sh*t over First World Problems. Here they are. And I promise to mentally – if not LITERALLY – pinch myself if I have dark, piddling little thoughts like these again and appreciate all the good shizzle again.

* There’s a baptist minister preaching loudly on my train? For 30 minutes? Oh well, I’m pretty sure it takes longer than that to break through more than 2 decades of atheism.

* M&S change their Christmas logo design and I don’t like it. Oh well, stop being a nerd and live your life.  Ridiculous person.

* When restaurants call you to confirm a booking. Pointless waste of time. I’ll call YOU if I can’t come, brasserie. Oh well, doesn’t hurt to check. You can’t blame them for being on their game, phoneaphobe.

* A top getting a bit small/grey/otherwise ruined in the wash. Especially if it was a favourite and you’d had that conversation with your other half about sorting out the colours A MILLION TIMES. Oh well, you do have a MILLION TOPS.  

* Having a cold. Oh well: Lemsip

* Anthropologie is too expensive. Oh well, did you really expect them to give away gorgeous dresses and deliciously smelly candles and embroidered tea towels and essential-to-life vases for free? Hmm?

* Too much pineapple = sore mouth and tongue. Oh well, at least you won’t get scurvy, eh?

So let’s all be fudging grateful, yeah? Or give it a go, anyway.

Laters, in-line skaters,

C x