Back in my college days, I dated an optometry student for a short period. I don’t remember a whole lot about him, other than he loved to interpret Beatle songs and check my eyes.

That’s all we ever did.

I would meet him at the Optometry School and we would escape to an examination room, where he would elevate me in his magic chair and ask me things like, “What is a yellow submarine?”

Then he would lean in, pretending to check my cornea, blowing his cover with a sweet kiss.

I’m not even sure why we stopped dating. Perhaps we ran out of Beatle songs to digest, or maybe we just didn’t see eye to eye.

Twenty five years later, I remain committed to regularly scheduled eye exams.

My latest optometrist is all business, but there’s still a small part of me that wants to lean in for a wet one during an examination.

I try to dismiss the thought as soon as it occurs, and direct all energies to observing the tip of his ear while he checks out my eyes.

He has perfect ears, I might add, with just a touch of soft downy covering. There’s also something in the way he moves…

For two years running, the man has made a declaration of “excellent optical health, but you might want to consider a light bifocal.”

A light bifocal –sure, fella.

I convinced him (and myself) that such a beast was not necessary quite yet.

Yes, I catch myself backing off at times to read the small print, but I’m not ready to incorporate into my wardrobe eyewear that hangs off a beaded chain. That’ll be the day…

It wasn’t two weeks after my last appointment with Dr. Downy Ears that everything became a blur- a kind of curse from the gods, no doubt, for my exercise in vanity. We were vacationing in Charlestown, S.C., watching some B movie, when an announcement slid across the screen:

Food alert!

“My gosh, kids, there’s a food alert!” (Do we have to leave?)

Lady madonna, baby at your breast- wonder how you manage to feed the rest…”

“Mom, it says ‘FLOOD alert.'”

Oh, well, no need to panic then. Carry on.

Catching up with the news online, I see that Burger King’s earrings are at an all time low.

I thought, “When did Burger King get into jewelry?” I pictured tiny cheeseburgers dangling on Eurowire, lettuce leaves brushing the shoulder, elongated Whoppers whisking in the wind.

A closer look revealed the operative word: ‘earnings.’ Oops.

Recently, I sturggled through a short novel about a woman named Bec who works as a caregiver for a woman afflicted with Lou Gehrig’s disease. My eyes transformed about every third “Bec” into “Bee,” and I was so confused that I labored to grasp the story.

I kept thinking, “Who in the Sam Hill is Bee, and how is she related to Bec?” I eventually gave up and just added the character to the plot: Bee is Bec’s evil twin.

Darn good story.

What can I say? It seems that my perspective of the world is becoming a bit skewed.

I am considering a visit to my eye doctor for the second time this year.

Help, I need somebody- help, not just anybody…