Whacked in Both Eyes

When I went to the Opticians recently for my biannual sight test, I looked forward to the glaucoma test at the end of the session: It had been a dusty day, and I fancied having the short, sharp puff of air squirted into my eye, to giving a coy little jump and going 'ooh'. Well that had gone. No longer any need to get you up to the contraption, he said. You can stay in your wheelchair, and I'll bring my snazzy little contraption right up to you. Just look over here now, and keep looking at that point.

The next minute the machine went click-clickety and I found myself blinking rapidly. It was probably some sort of laser or visible ray. Anyway it was soon over.

"Excellent!" he said, "your pressure is 15 in the right eye and 16 in the left. Then he showed me his thingie more closely and explained that the machine, an I-Care® Tonometer had fired a probe onto my eyeball six time, and then he showed the probe to me:



I nearly fainted at the though that a 1¾ inch needle had been whacking my eyes at ultrafast speed, but I guess I was interested, in fact I was fascinated enough to wheedle the probe out of him, even though he's 'not really' allowed to do it. If you don't tell, Sir, neither will I!