I’m at home this week, before I go back to school over the weekend. (Home home, not home as in where I live during the school year (although that’s still “home” when compared with the place I sublet for the summer (which itself is “home” as distinguished from “work”))). One of my duties this week has been driving my parents to and from the eye doctor.
The reason I’ve been pressed into this particular form of car service is that the pupil-dilating eyedrops they get at their eye exams leave them sensitive to bright light to a degree that makes driving outdoors in the late-summer sun somewhere between painful and impossible. (Funny: the last time I had my eyes checked, I recall driving both there and back. But maybe I lingered long enough picking out new glasses that I had time to undilate.)
Even with my taking care of the driving, going outisde before the drops have worn off is still painful. Thus, I’ve had the experience twice this week of shuttling around my parents while they hide behind sunglasses and shade their eyes. It’s as though they’ve suddenly become movie stars and I need to help them hide from the paparazzi.