She stood in the door, surveying the room, though I was the only one there. The weather had canceled out less hardy souls, and I'd taken that as an opportunity to call ahead and bend rules to move my appointment forward. After too long a time on hold, they'd agreed to do it my way. Even then, they didn't relent to the extent of sending me straight back when I arrived at the time we'd agreed. We played it by the book, and I waited for the lady to say my name before I set down the magazine, even though it seemed to take her one or two extra breaths to do so.

From waiting area to anteroom she and I went, and she took my glasses and handed me a clipboard full of notes to review as we did some preliminary tests. Granted, it's an eye care clinic, and they need to do some verification of the eyewear in use before beginning; still, I've always felt that having the clipboard to read before the glasses went would be better. No matter; the lady gave the impression of enthusiasm for her process, and I'm used to a little clumsiness with the enthusiasm I find. That enthusiasm made it pleasant enough to go through the preliminaries with her, before the exam itself.

It was when she said "come on back", and preceded me down the hall, that things began to seem a bit unexpected. I knew I would be seeing a different doctor than I had seen on my last visit, the previous one having moved on, and my original appointment confirmation had provided my new doctor's name for my temporary memorization. As my newest caregiver showed me to the big chair in the examination room and made it clear she'd be doing my exam, I couldn't help but notice she didn't look like a "Mark". (And I would know - I've been one.) Apparently more had been afoot than I had thought, earlier while I was on hold.

Perhaps this incongruity made me more aware of the details of what we were doing. I noted her stance at the counter as she began the paperwork, the way she managed the initial setup of the fantastic contraption used to check eyes. There was no fault to find; her movements and her patter spoke of competent professionalism. She clicked lenses smartly into new settings, tersely queried me for reactions, summed up what she learned thereby of the minor changes in my vision over the past couple of years. I was ready to proclaim her not a fraud.

As a sign of my newfound faith, I acquiesced readily when she said it was time to dilate my eyes. That faith was unshaken when she realized she'd need to lower the chair to effectively use the eyedrops, and faltered only briefly when I realized that one eye had been hit by them harder than the other. (I would have the appearance of a mild concussion for the rest of that day.) At her direction, I then leaned forward to join her in a stare, in a way that would have been embarrassing were it not for the eyepiece we were sharing.

Having lowered the my chair and leaned against her stool, her stance as she worked was similar to that of a home plate umpire. So I gathered, from what view that eyepiece gave me as we began. She asked me, in her clinical way, to look in various directions, so she could see through those holes in my head at various angles. I did just that, faithfully, until I got stuck looking at her left ear.

Earring in pierced ear, diamondesque, square, and largish. Nice. It struck me that it was not the sort of earring a lady selects in the morning while thinking "I need to hurry through a snowstorm to work," but rather the sort she chooses in the evening while thinking "I need to feel particularly good about myself right now." I think it was then that I knew for sure, and was amused.

Her left arm flew straight out to the side, flicking her wrist and fingers like that same home plate umpire emphatically calling a close Ball Three. "Over here, look over here," from her to break my reverie, in a tone of annoyance not quite so professional as she'd hoped. My hope was that the grin I grew as my eyes moved would not impair the accuracy of her results.

A few moments more, and we leaned back in awareness of a job well done. As she bustled the optical equipment back into its original places, she favored me with a remark: "Looks like you have some twisties in there." When my eyebrow raised, her mouth stopped moving in mid-smile, and I could see the wheels of her turning. She seemed briefly perplexed at how I took what she had said, realized I didn't completely understand, and decided to start her explanation all the way back at the beginning. As she finished filling out my paperwork, she discussed why it might be a good idea for me to have my eyes dilated every so often, and I just let her roll on without pointing out that I was the guy that walked in requesting that service, and the part that she was telling me was the part that I actually knew.

("Twisties?" What the hell is a "twisty"? Did she really see my soul in there, or what?)

Her sentences and the paperwork finished at about the same time, and she had another deep breath for herself as she looked me in the eyes for the first time unaided by equipment. "I have your prescription written up, but we have one more thing to do. I don't know if you know this, but I'm a resident here, and so I'll be asking Dr. Mark to step in to confirm the examination; he has to actually sign the paper."

She waited for the look of surprise to cross my face, and faltered briefly when she noted I had been smiling faintly at her earrings through her whole speech, and that she was not surprising me at all. Keeping thoughts of twisties at bay for the moment, I gave her a polite nod and a quiet "Of course." Lips tightening briefly, she nodded back, and sidestepped out of the room.

It took only moments for Dr. Mark to appear, and not much longer for him to repeat the last portion of my examination. He summarized what he saw in a slightly different way than she had, discussing typical consequences of my state and stage of life, and explaining that he could see veins on my retina behaving in the tangled fashion those consequences implied. After my few prompting questions, he had reassured me that, as I'd already known my state and stage, there was no real news for me from this exam.

Throughout the conversation, the resident stood a respectful pace behind the doctor, shifting her weight from foot to foot, in a way that spoke volumes about both nervousness and hips. By silent agreement, the doctor and I excluded her from the conversation, to allow her to observe how he related test results to a patient. It is qualitatively different to describe such things to people actually involved for their benefit; different from describing them to professors for your own. Having excluded her, it was natural for him and I to rise and walk out of the exam room together, after he'd signed her paper at the bottom and given it to me. She fell into step a couple of paces behind me.

As we wound through the needless bends typical to medical spaces, I took one stride to the side instead of ahead, letting the doctor get a bit farther ahead of me. I examined the resident's crisp handwriting on the paper in my hand, wondering how many years it would be before it became illegible.

I half turned as I walked, to the lady behind me alone with her thoughts. Thinking of how I'd been treated, I said to her the thing that was most on my mind.

"Thank you, Doctor."

She responded with a faint smile, a nod, and one "Of course." I breathed deeply, and smiled, and nodded back.

Of course, I'll be asking for her, next year when I return. It took a while for me to realize, later, that I didn't get her name. I suppose that I'll just ask for Dr. Twistie.