Optomitrist Joke

So, in being 'on loan' to another federal department and knowing that this is short-term the other department is not exactly motivated to create an ergonaumical work station for me. They have thrown together a PC and a monitor. Unfortunately, the monitor is so large that it takes up the whole desk top and while I work it is about 8 inches from my face.

Not surprisingly, six weeks in, my eyes are starting to pay the price: I am struggling to drive at night, my distance vision is challenged and - the worst of all - I have developed this little eye twitch in my left eye. Not noticable by others but completely disctracting to me. And it seems constant.

So, I book an appointment with the optomitrist to discuss the situation, my mind working miles an hour about all the bad things that can cause an eye twitch. The Doctor is just what you expect: a small, quiet middle eastern man who is very unimposing.

I discuss the situation, asking him gravely if I should be talking with a neurologist. *Stop laughing here Jon* He checks out my eyes and tells me that I need to get more sleep (cue laugh track here), stop drinking coffee (simply an impossibility) and reduce my stress (ROFL).

Then he offers me one more trick when the twitch starts: roll up a tiny bit of tissue and place it on your eyelid.

So, later that day, in the car with my large Timmy's, going on 5 hours of sleep with all the kids screaming, my eye starts to twitch. I figure I will try his trick so I roll up a little piece from the only clean tissue I can find and try to place it on my eyelid with no success. See, gravity works on eyelids as well.

But, I am the master of my universe: I can beat this silly thing they call gravity. I tilt my head back, swatting blindly at the child in the back who is touching the other child's car seat. I place the tissue on my left eyelid and wait.

Then I realize: this is the idea of an optomitrist's joke. I can hear the conversation around the dinner table now: So.... so ... then I tell her (snort, giggle) to roll up a tiny piece of tissue and she is listening to me like I am dispensing the word of God, see ..... and she buys it. She really believes that this piece of kleenex is going to fix the problem of sleep deprivation, caffeine high, stress ... man, some people will believe anything.