piropos from the optometrist

A couple of months ago my pair of "attitude glasses" died.

My prescription-filled sunglasses also are feeling a bit wobbly in the joints. 'Wobbly' meaning, of course, beyond repair.

I am down to my last pair of glasses, rimless, so I decided last week to bite the proverbial bullet and make an optometrist appointment. It has, after all, been three years since my last prescription.

Knowing I am not there to discover that I need glasses but to instead order new corrective lenses, and in my extreme-time-management mode, I took advantage of the looooong wait to try on various frames and write down what "finalists" made the cut. As soon as I had finished surveying my ocular appearance from behind fashion frames, Young Dr. Hottie-Pants called my name...actually pronouncing my name correctly!...and ushered me back onto the Throne.

We chatted a bit, I had attended undergrad at a school rather well-known for its graduate program in optometry and thus had served as "guinea pig" throughout my four years for my oppy boyfriend and his buddies. We whipped through my exam, very little change in my correction needed, and then he launched into a little statement about how, once we start moving toward 40, we notice the differences in how we read, but how my eyes, as I am ever-so-slightly near-sighted, will perhaps stave the process off a few more years than average. That was sweet music to my ears, although Kat Wilder's post from yesterday on signs--or not--that we are aging flashed through my mind as I said, "Yes, and once we hit that downhill slope, we really do start sliding!"

To which Young Mr. Dr Hottie Pants replied, "Not to say that you look at all like you are sliding."

I smiled. Was that a piropo?

(piropo: a flattering compliment or what could even be construed as a pick-up line)

Whether or not it was meant as such, I accepted, we ended our appointment and I went and spent (gasp) $873.75 on new glasses for what will hopefully be the next three years.

Walking home (yes, of course I walked!) I noticed five different trucks drive by, and each of them turned their heads to look at me as I walked up the street. One even turned a second time as he rounded the corner. Wow! There was a time that I resented the attention, be it in the form of a look or a whistle, or a "tsss tsss". It was later eloquently explained to me that, culturally, latino men are not meaning to degrade the female but rather to express deep appreciation for the beauty they behold.

Ah. Got it.

Just nice to know that I still haven't lost it!